How “moneyball” ties into farming

by | Dec 16, 2019 | 5 Ag Stories, News

American and Canadian growers convened in Omaha, Nebraska last week for Farmer2Farmer V, hosted by Farmers Business Network (FBN).

This year’s meeting focused on the ?moneyball? theory, conceived by Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland As.

Farmers Business Network co-founder and chief innovation officer Charles Baron, says, ?Moneyball is about thinking objectively and focusing on what matters.? He encourages producers to focus on what matters to beat the odds.

?Don?t think of just yield, just expenses. Think (about) the return on investment you?re getting from each decision and then get the tools, resources and information you need to make that decision,? Baron said. ?What was cool to hear from Billy was that in baseball, those statistics already existed. There were record keepers who had all the statistics; it just took someone to put it together to come up with those strategies. In farming, that data didn?t exist before.?

Farmers Business Network is building its database, providing growers with a clearing house of information, with subjects ranging from product performance to genetic and price transparency.

?Now we have this massive network of data, (which) farmers are creating to give them a platform to do ?moneyball? farming,” Baron said. “If we have another tough year here with trade, pricing, be a ?moneyball? farmer. Look at how moneyballs changed sports and think (about) how you can apply that on-farm.?

Farmers Business Network works to leverage farm businesses through expanding its offerings. Baron speaks to new items/offerings avaiable in the new year.

?We?ve updated almost every part of the system,” Baron said. “We?ve added change detection and imagery. You can get automatic change detection, yield prediction on a field-level basis. We (also) launched our community, which is an online question and answer system. Producers can ask tough, technical questions by tapping into other producers on the platform. Lastly, we?re going to rollout the first, post-patent GT corn traded seed. That?s going to give producers a new cost profile. We?re starting to roll those out in the southern U.S. this year in trials.”