A growers success story
The Bekker Group is comprised of Wording Boerdery and Toitskraal Sitrus, centred in Marble Hall, South Africa. The farm spans approximately 450 ha of production, primarily growing citrus and wheat, with canola added more recently. Their citrus varieties include lemons, soft citrus, navels, and Valencias. The main citrus season runs from April to September. In addition, they rotate cover crops, planting maize and soya in the summer, and wheat and canola in the winter months.
Francois Bekker, the current owner, took over the family farm in 2008. Since then, they have experienced substantial growth, making smart decisions in crop selection, soil sustainability, digitization, and automation. These initiatives are aimed at ensuring both immediate success and long-term sustainability for the farm.
The Group boasts an expert management team, with each farm manager focusing on their respective crop of expertise. Janus, a Farm Manager at Bekker Group, introduced Farmable when he joined in 2021. He believes they are on a journey of continuous operational improvement.
We had a talk with Janus, and asked him a few questions:
What got you started in Farming?
Janus comes from a table grape background and decided to try something new. He has a background in citrus, worked a bit with table grapes and wanted some cover crop experience. He grew up on a farm in Groblersdal and has always been something that he has been passionate about. He studied at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and worked in the table grape industry during his holidays.
What keeps you Farming?
Farming is what he loves and is passionate about, there’s not something else that would excite him more as ‘day to day’. It is not just a ‘job’ for him.
Where did you first hear about Farmable?
He first discovered Farmable through a Google search for farm management tools, primarily for spray record monitoring. After trying a few other systems, he was particularly impressed with Farmable’s overall usability. Although he considered developing his own program, he found that Farmable met all his requirements and was exceptionally user-friendly. Additionally, each update to the platform has been increasingly impressive.
How do you use Farmable?
He initially used Farmable on table grape farms and has since integrated it into the wider Bekker Group’s operations. Janus began by tracking spray jobs and has now expanded its use to manage nearly all farming operations. Farmable is now utilized for all crops, and they have subscribed to Farmable Pro and Product Inventory Management. This allows them to manage tasks, export reports for Global GAP audits, and oversee product inventory levels.
They regularly participate in feedback sessions, which are crucial for ongoing product improvements.
This is just one method in which Farmable prioritizes user feedback to ensure the product aligns with users’ needs.
What certifications/compliance processes do you have to meet on his farm?
Global GAP for Citrus, SIZA audits, GRASP, Water Usage audit.
How does Farmable help with this?
Recording the tasks the moment you do them saves you time from someone having to capture it again. It also captures a few things automatically and makes exporting his records easy. The Farmable reports have been sufficient for audits.
What are your concerns with compliance on Farm?
The costs associated with compliance can become quite expensive, especially considering the variety of data that needs to be captured. Farmable addresses these concerns by generating standardized reports for spray records, product usage, and monitoring weather conditions, and overall, streamlining the compliance process.
Start simplifying data management with Farmable Pro
Learn about Farmable ProYou have adapted Farmable to manage your security, please can you tell us a bit more about that?
They decided to go the route of mapping out zones for their security team before each shift and also mark out key areas for them to focus on. This also tracks out their routes with GPS and helps them manage their shift hours etc. They can see it in real time and report in the app on issues. A lot of the security personnel have not used a system like this before, however within 3 days they used it seamlessly. Janus and his team had concerns regarding data usage but it has been very little to note. Their constraints are on device battery life but that is just habit to charge the device, says Janus.
What do you enjoy most about using Farmable, and what do you appreciate the most about Farmable?
Janus mentioned that Farmable’s best feature is its ability to effectively plan and delegate jobs, allowing him to organize tasks in advance. He finds capturing spray records to be simple, and the team values the straightforward reports generated. Even for farm workers with limited exposure to technology, adopting Farmable has been seamless. Janus appreciates how Farmable has saved him significant time and effort, making communication and sharing information with the team much easier.
He noted that Farmable is easy to use, and very user-friendly, which really stands out to him.
Do you use any other technology or smart operations on the farm?
Other programs used are Adagin for bin tracking, Africlock for fuel recon, Precision Farming SGS for NDVI maps, and also have Davis weather systems supplied by Vital weather, and Donkerhoek clocking system.
Why do you think it is important for farms to start adopting digital tools?
“Meet om te weet” (Having data is knowledge and power).
Janus mentions that you have to not only record data, but analyse and compare this data to improve. Things are so costly you need to fine tune your data, and see where you can improve. It also needs to be ready in hand at any time for decision making. “How can you compare six year ago’s data with today’s data?”. He also says that with farming in South Africa these days, there is little room for error.
Are you a part of any co-operations or associations?
CRI (Citrus Research International), CGA (Citrus Growers Association), and Laeveld Agrochem whom assist them in scouting and IPM (Integrated Pest Management) programs.
What was your experience with other tools?
He mentioned that other apps tend to be overly complicated, overwhelming users with too much data that often requires an advisor to manage on behalf of the farmer. In contrast, Farmable puts control directly in the hands of the farmer, providing peace of mind and a more straightforward user experience.
It is refreshing to work with farms who embrace progressive mindsets. At Farmable, our goal is to align industry requirements with solutions that simplify farmers’ daily activities, especially when partnering with forward-thinking farms like the Bekker Group.
In conclusion, data is the most important thing for a business. It does not matter how you capture it, as long as you capture it. However, analyzing and measuring this data is where its true value lies, although this process can be time-consuming. Farmable has streamlined this process with easy data capture directly in the field. Janus emphasizes the importance of this for all farmers, as it enables efficient decision-making in a timely manner.
With Farmable Pro, you manage your farm data easily and simplify compliance work. For 1999 ZAR (99 EUR) per farm per year, you get the following valuable features in the Farmable mobile app:
- Unlimited fields,
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited jobs (spraying, fertilising, irrigating, fertigating, harvesting and multi-location),
- Unlimited monitoring (scouting) notes,
- Download or export audit-ready spray and fertilizer reports
- Decision support for spraying,
- Compliance ready reports (pdf or xls)
