Agro.Club, a U.S.-based startup, has established a new Canadian company to begin transforming the way the Canadian agriculture industry buys, sells and earns. Drawing on the company’s successful origins in the Black Sea market with over 10,000 farmers using the platform, the Canadian company is committed to creating efficient, inclusive technology solutions for the value chain.
“We want to give the whole industry a more efficient way of doing business digitally,” says
Neil Arbuckle, the Managing Director of Agro.Club Canada. Arbuckle has over 30 years of ag business leadership, working across the Canadian value chain. To Arbuckle, building an
online ecosystem that includes all the existing partnerships and trusted relationships is the key to helping the Canadian ag industry take a huge digital step forward.
David Hansen, CEO and President of CANTERRA SEEDS, supports the Agro.Club vision. “Until Agro.Club entered the market, the options were scarce. We could build an IT solution on our own, go with an e-commerce partner or sit back and do nothing. With Agro.Club, we were able to get online quickly with a partner that knows the industry and shares our commitment to partner with retailers and farmers” says Hansen.
Agro.Club makes the upfront IT investment and then partners with organizations who want
new ways to conduct their business online.
“Our model is to create an ecosystem where CANTERRA SEEDS – and any other input company – can reach farmers and offer programs and a farmer can place orders with their preferred retailer,” says Arbuckle.
The Agro.Club ecosystem isn’t limited to input companies. Arbuckle shared his excitement for the number of retailers who want to work with Agro.Club to digitize their own businesses.
Including retailers in the Agro.Club ecosystem is a key for Lorri Keyowski, Director of Sales
for CANTERRA SEEDS. Keyowski has over 15 years of experience in the Western Canada ag
retail network and farms at Wishart, Saskatchewan. After sharing the Agro.Club platform
with retailers across Western Canada, Keyowski has heard a lot of positive feedback. “The
ordering process is great. It combines agronomic considerations, automatically builds in the
program incentives and sends the farmer’s order to their selected retailer.”
For Keyowski, the power of the Agro.Club platform is the ability to incorporate digital
technology while sustaining local relationships. “I know many farmers who use their phone
for everything. We wanted to provide farmers with a new option to order seed that keeps them connected to their retailer.”
Through the real-time insights from the Agro.Club ecosystem, CANTERRA SEEDS is launching new, faster farmer incentives this fall. Farmers who place their order online by
December 15, 2020 will get 50% of their rebates before their seed hits the soil.
“As a farmer, I like the idea of being trusted to get my rebates earlier than ever before,” says Keyowski.
For Hansen, this is a new era in the company’s 25-year history. “This is a digital step forward for CANTERRA SEEDS. We’re excited to embrace change without losing what’s important.”
