- Paul Seeley, helping manage a 90ha Bramley, Gala, Braeburn, and Conference pear farm in Wisbech, was one of Farmable's earliest UK adopters.
- His team used Farmable to take field notes and trial the spray recording feature, finding it easier to use than competing products already in place.
- Seeley's vision: every farm job assigned through the app, GPS-tracked, and completed without paper, removing double-entry and human error from day-to-day operations.
Paul Seeley helps manage a 90-hectare top-fruit operation at Alan Hudson Ltd near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Bramley apples, Royal Gala, Braeburn, and Conference pears. He first learned about Farmable through an email from BIFGA.
“When I read about it, it immediately made sense to me because it's an app specifically aimed at top-fruit growers and created by top-fruit growers, which is a rarity in this industry. Most of the software available to us has not necessarily been developed for our sector. I could see that Farmable had quite a lot of promise for the future.”
Paul Seeley
After signing up, Paul had a conversation with Farmable's chief commercial officer, Kaye Hope, and decided to trial the platform with his team. Alan Hudson Ltd joined a community of more than 300 commercial fruit farms then using the platform, most in the UK, Germany, Australia, and Norway.
Built by fruit farmers, for fruit farmers
Farmable was founded by Lars Petter Blikom, co-owner of Norway's largest fruit farm, Fruktgården. He recognised that R&D investment in agriculture had focused heavily on hardware, sensors and robotics, while the software layer for fruit producers had been left behind.
“If his farm was tracking daily operations in notebooks and spreadsheets, how could he ever expect to send intelligent data to operate an unmanned vehicle in a field?”
Kaye Hope, Farmable CCO
The app was designed from 2018 to enable field operators, farm managers, and agronomists to track, monitor, and record operations via mobile phone, generating a database of farm records to simplify reporting to authorities and marketing organisations.
What Paul's team used Farmable for
While the platform wasn't yet fully developed enough to replace all existing systems at Alan Hudson, the team members were already using Farmable confidently to take field notes, recording a wide range of issues from broken stakes to incidences of fire blight, with GPS locations and photos.
“The guys are happier to use this app than competing products we are currently using. I've just invited our agronomist to trial the app, so we'll be sharing notes with him as well.”
Paul Seeley
The team also trialled the spray feature. Tractor drivers used GPS on their phones to track and log their position during spray tasks.
“At the moment the guys have to write out the times they started spraying and what the weather was like. We write it on paper and I then input this at the office, two lots of inputting that could be done with almost no input whatsoever. That, to me, is where technology should be.”
Paul Seeley
The vision for less paper and fewer errors
Paul is clear on what he wants technology to do: eliminate the double-handling of information that costs time and introduces human error.
“There can be problems where one of the operators writes something down incorrectly. It is not their fault, we all make mistakes. This will take away that human error. With more stringent auditing, and rules and regulations, accurate reporting is more important than ever.”
Paul Seeley
His vision for the future: every farm job assigned through the app, each task linked to a block on the map, operators guided directly to where they need to be, and completed work marked done, automatically, without paper or re-entry.
“Rather than me telling team members which jobs they need to do for the day, some of which they could forget, they could simply be given a list of each job on the app, along with a map. When they've finished, they can register it as completed and move on to the next one.”
Paul Seeley
Frequently asked questions
What compliance records does Farmable generate for UK growers?
Farmable automatically creates spray diaries from recorded job data, no manual re-entry required. Records are exportable and formatted to support Red Tractor, LEAF, and GlobalG.A.P. audits.
Does Farmable work for field scouting and agronomist collaboration?
Yes. Field notes can be recorded with GPS coordinates and photos directly in the app, then shared with agronomists or other team members in real time.
Can Farmable replace paper job sheets on a top-fruit farm?
That is exactly what it is designed to do. Managers assign tasks per block via the app, operators complete work on their mobile, and progress is GPS-tracked without any paper changing hands.