Precision Agriculture

Farmable Harvest Labels

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Kaye Hope

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August 06, 2024

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Farms asked for it. We built it. 

This simple feature is the easiest way to have full control of your harvest bins this season.

One of the best parts about my job at Farmable is talking to farm managers. You have amazing ideas, and you are genuinely happy to share good ideas with our team in hopes of improving a product. 

Of all the conversations I have with farm managers, at the top of the list is getting to call up a farm and say, ‘Hey! Remember that great idea you had? It’s in the App now!’ 

Suffice it to say, our team at Farmable is feeling a huge appreciation to the farm managers who asked for printable harvest labels. Today, we get to share this feature just in time for harvest season.

What are Farmable Harvest Labels?

The Farmable App can be used to register harvested batches for your farm. Starting today, you can immediately choose to print harvest labels for any existing harvest record. You can do this conveniently when entering batch details or going back to your historical records and printing labels when you need them.

What does this really look like?

1. Register harvest batches with essential data points: field name, box size & box count, or alternatively, total weight and quality rating. You have the choice to add images, exact GPS coordinates and additional comments about each harvest batch.

2. Now you notice the Print option at the bottom of the Register harvest screen? When you click that, you can see the preview of the printable bin label which you can immediately print or share.

3. Boom. Done. 

Professional looking bin labels with all the key data points: Field Name, Crop Category, Crop Variety and Harvest date. You can easily share the label over any of your usual phone apps like WhatsApp, SMS or email. Or you can go ahead and print it to any connected printer.

 

So what’s that QR Code for?

When you scan the QR code on the label, you get more details on the harvest batch including a visual of the field location. You’ll also get a nice little rundown on volume, quality and batch number.

Why use Farmable Harvest Labels?

#1. Full control of your harvest bins; instantly know the variety, quality, volume and harvest date of any bin. And most importantly, what field did it come from. 

#2. Traceability.  Easily track any bin back to the field level. 

Now traceability is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days, so I won’t blame you if you rolled your eyes here. Like it or not, traceability will be part of the future of farming. In the US, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA 204) will push food and beverage supply chains to install traceability processes by 2026. In Europe, countries like Spain, Switzerland and Austria have already put systems in place. All other European nations need to initiate some degree of traceability reporting in the next two farming seasons. 

In short, traceability is happening and farm managers have a central role to making it possible.  The key to getting through this change, will be having simple, low-cost systems that are easily implemented on the farm. Our team at Farmable is on a mission to do exactly that. 

The Upside to Traceability

While traceability is connected to regulations on the farm, it’s not all doom and paperwork.  Farms that put good processes in place, stand to benefit:

 

  • Better traceability means the farm is in a stronger position to negotiate in the event of downgraded or rejected crops from packhouses, distributors or other supply chain partners. 
  • ROI per field.  Getting your data organized for field level traceability, means you can easily unlock a key metric for your farm: revenue per field. Now you are half-way to knowing your ROI per field. (If you are using Farmable, you can easily get all the way to ROI per field). 
  • Subsidies. Money in your pocket. While you might start a traceability project due to upcoming regulation, putting the systems in place can easily allow you to demonstrate compliance with subsidy programs. Depending on where you farm, these are becoming more available for food safety programs, sustainability initiatives and just demonstrating alignment with central, digital reporting systems. 

 

Simple, Low-Cost Systems, Easily Implemented

If you subscribe to FarmablePro, the printable labels are already included in your subscription. For the cost of a label printer and a couple rolls of labels, you can initiate traceability this harvest season. Not to mention reduce the stress of managing the hundreds (or thousands) of bins that move through an orchard during harvest season.

If you don’t subscribe to FarmablePro, this feature gives a pretty big ROI. 

For 99 euro/year per farm, you can: 

  • Automate your spray and fertilizer logs 
  • Receive smart alerts for spraying conditions and products restrictions
  • Easily print or share batch labels for any harvest record 

So in everyday farming life that means:

 

  • Less time on paperwork
  • Less worrying product violations and worker safety
  • Fewer headaches from organising harvest bins

 

You can always try FarmablePro for free with our 14-day trial. 

We hope your farm will benefit from the harvest labels this season.  If you like the  feature already, you can thank these 4 farms who contributed to making it happen: 

  • Jasper Nagel from Jasper Nagel
  • Philipp Dellbrügge from Obstbau Dellbrügge 
  • Henrike Alps from Obstbauer Wedeking
  • Paul Seeley from Alan Hudson Farm

 

To Jasper, Philipp, Henrike and Paul; we couldn’t do this without you and amazing ideas from the Farmable community. Thank-you! Keep that feedback coming and we will do everything possible to offer simple, low-cost systems that can easily be implemented on your farm.