Old Grazing Systems Put Out to Pasture

Founded by Ollie Roberts, a dairy farmer by trade, Pasture.io is a pasture management platform designed to allow fellow farmers within the Australian dairy industry a place to fully utilise their pasture measuring data for making the best grazing decisions. Following their recent success in Corporate Vision’s 2020 Corporate Excellence Awards, we profiled the unique platform to discover more about one of the most innovative pasture management solutions.

There is a huge lost opportunity in livestock grazing systems due to farmers making decisions of where to graze their livestock without known information. Pasture.io is a revolutionary platform which provides this information automatically using satellites and local weather information. By using this, farmers can best manage their pastures and do a better job in looking after their animals. Being able to fully utilise the data that the farmers have at their disposal means that they are able to increase their productivity and profitability.

Pasture’s values haven’t changed since they were established. They hold strong principles in their goals of doing business. Ultimately, they want their customers to succeed and this is  driven by their personal connections to the land and their broader quest in feeding the world in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.

Pasture’s successes are down to the pragmatic and fun way they tackle the issues that their customers deal with daily. They are also very experienced in dealing with these issues first-hand. The problem of pasture management first arose on their Founder and CEO’s own family dairy farm. They use these direct experiences in order to know exactly what their customers want and how to approach any issues that they encounter.

Their client base is predominantly made up of farmers with livestock that graze pasture. They also have broader distribution channels which are up of consultants, service providers, and large corporate farming entities. In 2014, the company has able to increase their customer base by converting their program into a web- based one, and four years later were able

to further widen their net by being able to overcome the limitations of satellite imagery. This meant that they were able to deliver their results automatically.

Employees at Pasture.io all remotely and rarely see each other face to face. This has proven to be a successful model for the business as it allows them the freedom to work autonomously, take responsibility, use initiative and to find a good work-life balance. Their company culture is relaxed and fun and this leads to everybody getting stuck in to any unexpected or urgent problems arise. Pasture.io take great pride in the way they approach their work and challenge themselves. Throughout the years, Pasture.io have been able to foster a free and empathetic workplace culture, which has been crucial in the success of the company.

Each staff member plays a significant role in the success of the company. Mostly, the roles consist of customer success and a long-term focus on developing and fostering strategic relationships. There is a lot of overlap between many of the different divisions of the company. This is a very positive thing because it enables everyone to develop an understanding of what every aspect of the business does. As the business continues to grow, this understanding helps the staff to prioritise their tasks.

Currently, Pasture.io does a lot of outsourcing. By doing things this way, the business can headhunt the best people who they fit with and importantly it gives new recruits the opportunity to fit work out if they fit with them. They source recruitments worldwide, and in essence, they believe this is how they can scale their workforce with highly skilled, capable and friendly people.

The market that Pasture’s target audience operates in has had a very tough time of late. However, the silver lining of this is that they can use Pasture.io’s services for a multiple of 40 on their return on investment with them. The tough side for Pasture.io is that cost-cutting measures can sometimes be pushed harder than profit drivers in tight terms. Recently however, the tide has started to turn. The price of goods is up and the customer base is optimistic for the future.

Pasture.io have some big developments that they have coming up. One of these is the release of a Version 2.0 service. They are saying goodbye to their legacy problem and are moving on to the most advanced user experience in the field for their services.

Contact: Ollie Roberts

Company: Pasture.io Pty Ltd

Web Address: https://pasture.io