With today's tight margins, farmers and agribusinesses need every tool available to run more efficiently. There's a local company that's making it easier. Bushel is a mobile app that keeps all your important information right at your fingertips. We visited the Reynolds United Co-op Elevator to see how the Bushel app is helping them and their customers.
The Bushel app take a lot of what farmers and elevators used to do on paper and puts it right on their phone.
"Your contracts, your scale tickets, your markets. Everything is right there in one hand. A couple of swipes and you've got everything. We see a lot more people selling at opportune times," says Travis Hegg.
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Since the Ryenolds United Co-op started using the Bushel app about six months ago, controller Jennifer Skold says they've seen big changes in their business.
"Definitely more efficient, we're not taking phone calls that, some guys will say how many bushels do I have left on my contract, well, they know what contracts they have out there, or they can see what they prepaid, and things like that. It just makes them more efficient you don't have to spend time trying to gather than information, it makes everybody happy," Skold says.
Farmers tend to be eager to adopt tech, and Skold says almost all of their members quickly signed up for the Bushel app.
"The customers love it," she says. "There's not an app out there that we're aware of that has both markets and weather and then your personal information, your grain information or your agronomy information. There's a variety of apps out there, But not one has all that combined."
Rose Dunn: Bushel was developed by Fargo tech company Myriad Mobile and launched in 2017. There's no cost to farmers to use the app, and Hegg says the elevator's cost is quickly recovered by more efficient operation. He says employees spend much less time on the phone answering customers' questions. But, they don't want to lose their personal relationships.
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"Just call them to say hi. See how it's going," Hegg says.
Each elevator working with Bushel has its own downloadable app.
