July 21, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

TELUS Agriculture and Rabobank have announced their acquisition of Conservis – a leading independent provider of digital farm management services that integrates disparate farm technologies into one streamlined interface for better farm management. 

Through Conservis, farmers and institutional farms are able to unify and organize all data generated from different sources and platforms, to eliminate manual entry (which is prone to errors), create successful business plans, manage costs, marketing, and production, and be able to generate lender-ready, up-to-date reports that can then be shared with lenders.

“As we continue to further digitize and idealize the ag lending process of the future, we recognize the value in the industry having a digital tool available for growers to link their agronomic and business data,” said Berry Martin, member of the managing board of Rabobank.

“TELUS Agriculture’s deep specialization in digital agriculture makes them an ideal partner for us to facilitate the continued success and growth of agriculture’s leaders. With this investment, we look forward to partnering with them and leveraging their team’s expertise and technological integration across the food system.”

With this deal, Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture envision building out an even more robust Conservis platform by combining Rabobank’s knowledge and relationships across the entire food value chain with TELUS Agriculture’s technical expertise and platforms.

In fact, Rabobank has been working with Conservis since 2018 when Rabo AgriFinance, a Rabobank subsidiary that serves agricultural producers in North America,  and Conservis announced a partnership to co-develop technology to enable U.S. farmers to connect their real-time field management data to their financial results. 

“Conservis works exclusively with leading producers internationally as we do, so they understand the complex business needs of our clients,” said Curt Hudnutt, executive vice president of Rabo AgriFinance and head of rural business in North America for Rabobank, in 2018. “We are committed to connecting our clients to tools that might help them not only manage risk and finances but also the other challenges of managing a business. After extensive research, we feel confident in the Conservis farm management software and their hands-on approach to helping clients get the most of their product.”

This deal brings in TELUS Agriculture with its portfolio of technologies and track record of innovation that will help enhance the Conservis platform’s functionality, while giving farmers greater access to world class products and services through TELUS Agriculture’s Agricultural Data Exchange (ADX) and Agricultural Services platform (ASX).

“We believe that improving on-farm profitability and enabling the efficient sharing of farm data with trusted partners are foundational ingredients to ensure the sustainability and security of our food system,” said Francois Gratton, executive vice-president, TELUS and group president, TELUS Health and TELUS Agriculture, which is supported by a team of more than 1,200 experts across Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Slovakia, Armenia, Germany, China, and Australia.

“Rabobank has an exceptional track record of supporting the financial health of farmers throughout the global agriculture community,” added Gratton. “Together alongside Rabobank and with the technology available in the Conservis platform, we will be able to make financial management of farms a more efficient process and unlock new opportunities for our customers across the food value chain.”

Together, Rabobank and TELUS Agriculture will collectively leverage their global presence, experience, and expertise to further develop the Conservis farm management system to provide solutions to data challenges, to empower farmers’ decision-making, and to create sustainable, profitable, opportunities with other entities in the food value chain.

Predicated on trust and transparency, Conservis will continue to center around solving problems that matter for our clients,” said Pat Christie, president, Conservis. “The partnerships we’ve forged with companies like Rabo AgriFinance, Climate FieldView™ and John Deere serve one purpose only and that’s to empower the producer with one real-time, singular source of truth.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.