At its best, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a spectacular tool for helping businesses optimise their processes, digitise their data and reach their goals. In particular, agricultural ERP has offered a transformative and exciting shift in the agricultural sector that sets them apart from other ERP systems:
1. Compliance
Whether it is a quick bite at your favourite café or dinner with your family, eating is vital to our social and cultural wellbeing as well as our physical wellbeing. We want to know that the food we consume is clean and safe from anything that may cause us harm. Tracking has become a critical part of the agricultural process and helps consumers ensure that their produce safe, healthy and reliable.
Farmers need to track the seeds, fertilisers and pesticides (if any) they use to produce our food. They need to track the growth and sales of their crops; they must know which field it grew in and who it was sold to. Farmers form the early links of the worldwide food supply chain and by utilising agricultural ERP tools, we can trace the lifecycle of our produce from farm to table more effectively than ever before.
2. HRMS Integration
Much of the labour performed on a farm is seasonal work and therefore requires logistical and operational support to ensure all the work is managed and the workers are compensated. An ERP tool-set that has integrated HRMS (Human Resource Management System) functionalities will help to track who worked and when, how much they are owed and when their upcoming shifts and seasons are.
Farm workers do their jobs outdoors and will move from field to field and farm to farm along with the work. These workers go through hard days and require food and water during their work hours, along with adequate sanitation facilities that can move with the crews. ERP systems with HRMS integration help farm managers ensure that farm workers are well taken care of and all the work gets done.
3. Livestock Tracking
As much as it may feel this way, meat does not simply appear on your dinner table or even in your local store. There is an animal that is born and raised, and agricultural ERP helps ranchers track each animal throughout its life. They keep important information, such as: When was it born? What is its lineage? What and how much food did it eat? Was it ill or did it receive any veterinary care or medicine? It the animal going to a customer with a no-hormone requirement? With ERP systems, ranchers can track, monitor and prove all of this information to their buyers.
4. Breeding Calendars
Breeding calendars are another important part of farming livestock. Agricultural ERP will help ranchers manage and organise their breeding calendars to get the best calf production possible. This is done by ensuring every cow and heifer are monitored to determine when they are in season and ready for breeding. As the time approaches, they are held for the right bull and then ERP systems help track the cow’s health during gestation and record the health of the calves produced.
5. Field Mapping
Today, fields are rarely left to nature and require a deliberative process of field mapping. Fields are graded absolutely flat to avoid water runoffs and ensure that all the water seeps down into the roots. Within any field, there are some areas that will be more fertile than others. By identifying and marking these less fertile areas, farmers can pay more attention to them and ensure a more balanced crop yield.
Crops must be planted closer together in the more fertile zones and wider apart, with more fertiliser and water, in the less fertile areas. The data collected and distributed via the agricultural ERP setup will use that data to automatically signal farm equipment, such as tractors and irrigation systems. These farming tools will be optimised for all of their uses from ploughing and fertilising to planting and harvesting.
These are just some of the features and uses that are unique to agricultural ERP systems. There are many more tools and benefits that can be purpose-built for farmers and ranchers to help them become more productive on any type of farm.
Find the right agriculture ERP solution to suit your farming and business needs. Explore our comprehensive and expert ERP consulting services at Lorge, today.