New company launched that will advise farmers on nutrient management

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This article was published 21/07/2023 (805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

About a year after being ousted as CEO of Farmers Edge — the company he founded — Wade Barnes is back in the business.

He may not be in direct competition with his old company but it’ll be pretty close.

Barnes has launched a new company called Ronin Agronomy, which will advise farmers on nutrient management to address the global challenge of increasing food production while minimizing environmental impact.

Ronin Agronomy will offer practical solutions rooted in precision agronomy including variable rate technology, enabling farmers to strike a balance between productivity and sustainability.

“In my view there will be immense amount of pressure on farmers to do nutrient management,” he said. “That means they are going to have to be highly efficient with fertilizer application.”

Barnes figures his experience with Farmers Edge — which was one of the first companies in the Canadian market offering precision agronomy services — means he has the network to address the market including contacts with farmers.

It is not clear if Ronin Agronomy will go after Farmers Edge customers.

This time out, Barnes said he is not planning on raising capital, but will bootstrap the operation himself along with some yet-to-be-named partners.

Farmers Edge went public with an initial public offering in early 2021 at $18 per share, but the company’s share price has slumped ever since and has been trading around $0.20 for much of this year.

Barnes believes the growing consumer demand as well as new regulations will mean farmers are going to have to account for the energy input in their crops.

That imperative is becoming obvious with recent partnerships formed by some of the largest agricultural companies in North America. Just this month, Cargill and John Deere announced a collaboration to enable new revenue streams for farmers adopting sustainable practices, and in late May, the fertilizer company Nutrien announced an alliance with Bunge to support U.S. farmers in implementing sustainable farming practices to lower their carbon footprint.

Barnes said he wants to get in the field quickly with Ronin and is hiring specialists across Western Canada to get out to talk to farmers and will partner with technology companies rather than develop his own including, for instance, one with a European company that will effectively serve as that company’s launch into the Canadian market.

When he was at the helm of Farmers Edge, the company seemed to be in perpetual motion with acquisitions and partnerships being announced seemingly on a weekly basis.

Barnes said Ronin Agronomy is not going to be the only venture he’ll be pursuing now that his non-compete agreement with Farmers Edge is up.

He said he’s hoping to launch another company later this summer that will be more technology-focused that will requires some investor capital.

“What Ronin does is the service,” said Barnes. “It will work with the growers and build nutrient management planning. But they will also need something that can take that information and create the carbon intensity scoring that will be increasingly needed by the food companies and the grain companies.”

He said the technology is being built right now for this new company that can take data and create a scoring mechanism which the farmers will be able to use to get a premium price on their crop based on their carbon footprint.

“That other company will be more of software-as-a-service model that’s more focused on carbon intensity,” he said. “The two companies will work closely together.”

The new company with the carbon intensity scoring can also be marketed to third parties and not just to Ronin customers.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca