b'Curt Baldwin is director of Canterra Seeds canola, corn and soybean business unit.independent manufacturers, trusted retailers, grain exportersAccording to Arbuckle, Agro.Club Canada enables farmers to and food companies, the company says in a news release.place orders online for the products of its manufacturer partners. This opens up new opportunities for players of all sizes, whileFarmers then select their preferred retailer. Price is negotiated providing a closer relationship with farmers and platform supportlocally, and once a deal is reached, product is delivered and across the whole value chain, from seed to grain at the port. supported by the retailer of the farmers choice.Online sales in the seed world are relatively new. The problem Looking for Industry Acceptance is designing the system. A supplier can build it themselves, but The Agro.Club Canada announcement comes two yearsits not their area of expertise. They could contract it out to a after Farmers Business Network (FBN) announced its movethird party, but thats expensive. Or they can do nothing and to Canada, setting up a head office in High River, Alta.,watch the world go by, which most people understand isnt really and announcing its acquisition of Yorkton Distributors inan option for their business, Arbuckle says.Saskatchewanthe beginning of what it said would be aAgro.Club gets them digitally enabled in a cost-effective way distribution network across the West. as this digital ag revolution were seeing all over the world FBN allows farmers to anonymously share precision ag datatakes place.including seed performance, as well as information on whatCurt Baldwin, director of the Canterra Seeds canola, corn and theyre paying for seed and crop protection products. Farmerssoybean business unit, says being the first seed company to can also purchase inputs directly online from FBN and itssign on to the platform made sense because it puts an emphasis partners. on relationships between the grower and retailer, something FBN Canadas approach to doing business on the seed side islacking under other online sales models.a little different than its U.S. counterpart, however. In the U.S.,We know retailers deliver local expertise and have a unique an individual seed variety can be sold under multiple brandunderstanding of the customers needs, which ensures our names by different retailers at different price points, and FBNsproducts perform on their farm. It was important for us to data will reveal which seed products from which brands areembrace that and bring it online, Baldwin explains.genetically identical, and at what prices theyre being sold for. Rewards programs are a huge part of what we do as well. An Because Canadas seed system forbids multiple suppliersearly order allows us to plan our supply chain so we can have the from selling the same variety of seed, FBN Canada has insteadright seed with the right treatment available at the right time, and focused on performance and price analytics. a platform like this allows us to bring that concept online as well.44seed.ab.ca'