There was green on the screen following the release of the United States Department of Agriculture’s much-anticipated Prospective Plantings and Quarterly Grain Stocks reports on Wednesday. Both corn and soybean acres came in below what the market was looking for, as well as what the USDA projected at its outlook forum last month. “That really… Read More
Farmers Business Network® made a big announcement on September 15, 2020: FBN® membership is now free* to family farmers in five Canadian provinces where it currently does business: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Farmers who sign up for a free FBN membership will enjoy access to a select range of ever-expanding products and… Read More
Farmers Business Network (FBN) has acquired Haplotech and Cibus’ Canadian canola breeding program — a pair of moves that show the online crop input retailer and farm data aggregator intends to shake up the canola breeding and seed market in Western Canada and the northern U.S. “We have entered the seed business in the U.S…. Read More
Farmers Business Network (FBN) has announced a change to its business model: it is dropping its $700 annual membership fee as of September 15 in an effort to expand its customer base. Farmers who had already paid for membership this year will receive credit for future purchases of products or services. FBN entered the Canadian… Read More
Investors continue to see potential in agtech, as Farmers Business Network (FBN) has secured US$250 million in funding from a group of new and existing investors. The Series F funding for FBN, announced on Monday, was led by funds managed by New York-based BlackRock Inc., with participation from new investors Baron Capital Group, Balyasny Asset… Read More
In a story first posted to the Wall Street Journal, Canadian antitrust authorities are investigating some big players in the agriculture world. The Competition Bureau is reportedly looking at whether Bayer AG, Corteva Inc., and BASF violated Canadian competition law in their dealings against Farmers Business Network, which entered the Canadian market in 2018. According… Read More
The actual price of farm chemicals is often hidden from farmers using techniques like rebates, black box programs and price matching. That means Canadian farmers may be paying different prices to buy the exact same products. The lack of transparency in the ag chemicals market can add costs to an already expensive crop production essential…. Read More
Farmers Business Network (FBN) has initiated an aggressive plan to expand into Canada. Launched as a Silicon Valley start-up with backing from venture capital funds in 2015, FBN started as a platform for aggregating data across millions of acres to provide U.S. farmers with information for crop input purchasing and agronomic decisions. Since then, FBN… Read More
The application of “big data” in farming makes sense in theory. More data enables better decision-making, but at the individual farm level it can be difficult to accumulate a large enough sample size for actionable agronomic analysis. Variety XYZ performed well on one field last year, so should you grow more of that variety next year? Or… Read More