Farm Source is a hub for Co-op farmers providing support, expertise, innovative tools and services. Among those working behind the scenes to support farmers is the Services and On-Farm Solutions team. Headed by Category Strategy Manager Stephen Alexander, the small team comprises of Procurement Specialist Shane Laurich and Services Delivery Lead Rachel Corcoran.
We caught up with Stephen and Shane to find out more about what the team does to ensure farmers get the best bang for their buck.
By way of background, Stephen grew up in Northland on a sheep and beef farm. He graduated university with a double degree in commercial law and business management and worked with Mainfreight and The Warehouse Group before heading to the UK where he spent 10 years working in buying and merchandise planning at Toys R Us, Tesco and Harrods. Stephen and his family returned to New Zealand in 2019 where he took up his current role at Farm Source.
Born in Ngatea, Shane’s parents were sharemilkers who worked their way up to farm ownership. He relief milked during holidays from university where he completed a Bachelor of Management. Upon graduating, Shane got a job at Farm Source in the Customer Service team. After completing his OE in Europe, he rejoined Farm Source where he rose up the ranks of management completing Farm Source’s Leadership Essentials and Management Development programme, and then joined Stephen’s team last year.
Stephen: Our team’s focus is on maximising the buying power of the Co-op to save farmers money. Services cover your big input costs power, fuel, telecommunications, insurance, and what we call ‘other’, which is primarily Farm Source Rewards card relationships that we have with different merchants: fuel stations, Bunnings, Mitre 10, Resene etc. The more farmers who bill through Farm Source, the better leverage that we have with those companies to get discounts for farmers.
The difference between our categories versus the dairy and rural categories is that we don’t deal in physical products; services are intangible. It has to be a conversation that primes the farmer’s interest and motivates them into action.
Shane: My focus is on new or existing technology that helps our farmers push forward to improve with emissions, efficiencies they can gain, and cost savings. Two recent examples are AIMER and Livestock Visibility Solutions (LVS). AIMER is a pasture management tool that can drive efficiencies through better pasture utilisation and can lead to less emissions, more money saved and profit improved. The LVS automated backing gate uses AI technology and cameras to focus on flow rate of the herd through the milking platform, which can lead to a reduction in overall power consumption, shorter milking windows (up to 18% reduction) and reduced labour costs. Some farms using this system have noticed a reduction in lameness of up to 25%.
As Stephen mentioned, we want to make Farm Source’s offerings really competitive and beneficial for our farmers.
Stephen: Our On-Farm Solutions offers are relatively new for Farm Source and came off the back of our Milk Vat Telemetry (MVT) project several years ago that provided information on the quantity of milk collected and collection times etc. We realised there were a lot of other solutions that could benefit our farmers like water, soil moisture, and effluent monitoring. The first cab off the rank after MVT was SenseHub collars (formerly Allflex) and we’ve grown from there.
Our team is small but we cover a lot of ground and liaise extensively with other areas of the business. As well as supporting Shane, myself, and our vendors, Rachel works behind the scenes to set up the billing relationships with our vendors whilst providing support for Technical Sales Reps (TSRs), sales specialists and Farm Source store managers about services and on farm solutions so they can then train others in their respective teams. We also work with the Fonterra Procurement Team and rewards teams, so that we can maximise the deals and benefits for all our stakeholders.