Emma Parsons has been named Agrigate CEO

Emma Parsons is taking charge of the farm performance system Agrigate. Wealth of industry knowledge will help grow system

Emma Parsons has been appointed chief executive of Agrigate, the online tool aimed at helping farmers improve their farm performance.

Agrigate is a joint venture between Fonterra Farm Source and LIC, developed to combine key data farmers need to make faster and smarter decisions from one, easy to use online dashboard.

Agrigate chairman and LIC chief executive Wayne McNee said Ms Parsons will bring a wealth of industry knowledge and experience to the role.

Ms Parsons, who was Fonterra's general manager responsible for dairying and has held a number of senior management roles at the co-op, started with Agrigate on June 12.

Mr McNee said the position drew a significant amount of interest from applicants.

"Farmers involved in the trials of Agrigate told us it will be revolutionary in helping them improve their farm performance, and that was also validated by the number of high calibre applicants who were keen to take the lead role."

He thanked Tim Cutfield for his leadership, which was "instrumental to the successful start-up of the joint venture". Mr Cutfield will move back into his role as farmer innovations manager for Fonterra.

Agrigate was launched to farmers in February 2017, and now has more than 1000 users.

The tool is continuously evolving, with feedback from farmers who are using the platform determining the roadmap for development. New features are being released every two weeks and farmers are checking back to see what has been added.

A new data partner was also announced at the National Fieldays at Mystery Creek near Hamilton.

Agrigate has been designed to help farmers plan ahead, using existing data to assess the interaction between different on-farm factors, such as weather conditions, animal health, milk production, pasture data and more. It helps farmers track what effect each factor has on the others so that they can plan accordingly.

Access to Agrigate is free for Fonterra Farm Source and LIC farmers until July 31. After that, subscriptions will be based on what information farmers want available on their dashboard.