FarmIQ's Freshwater Farm Plan Tool To Make Compliance A Breeze For Farmers

FarmIQ, today, released their Freshwater Farm Plan Tool: a step-by-step guide within the FarmIQ product that supports farmers through the process of creating a Freshwater Farm Plan.

Freshwater Farm Plans (FWFP) are a regulated farm planning process for farmers and growers that will provide a practical way to identify, manage and reduce the impact of farming on the freshwater environment.

FarmIQ’s FWFP tool was developed with the aim of helping farmers with this new piece of compliance that has so far been rolled out in Waikato and Southland, with Otago and West Coast next to come.

The FarmIQ FWFP tool takes farmers through the process of mapping their land, assessing their risks to freshwater, and building an action plan. This is all linked to a digital map of their farm in FarmIQ, making it simple for farmers, farm advisors, certifiers, and auditors to develop or monitor these plans all in one place.

Farmers can either do the FWFP by themselves, or if they want a bit of a hand, they can give third-party access to a consultant to do some of the heavy lifting for them.

Because FarmIQ is a map-based farm management system, it forms the perfect base for the map and land-unit focus of the FWFP regulations.

FarmIQ is a map-based farm management tool that helps farmers keep track of staff management, land and feed data, animal recording and compliance information.

Executive general manager for FarmIQ, Gavin McEwen, says that FarmIQ has had a longstanding commitment towards providing tools that enable better integrated farm planning.

“Building on our existing software platform, and recognising the industry’s commitment towards improving water quality, we have invested in new functionality that walks users through the requirements to create a Freshwater Farm Plan,” explains Gavin.

“It has been an excellent example of our software designers and subject matter experts working closely with government, processors, regional councils, catchment groups, consultants and, of course, farmers to create a software tool that, to date, has received excellent feedback.”

The release of FarmIQ’s FWFP tool coincides with a new version of the FarmIQ software being released – FarmIQ Lite – which offers a very cost-effective entry point to utilise FarmIQ’s interactive farm map, staff management tools and compliance features, helping users keep up with industry rules and regulations.

One of the key aspects of the new tool is that the new functionality ties in 100 percent with existing FarmIQ features, further underpinning FARMIQ’s reputation as being the most comprehensive farm management software available in New Zealand.

Current FarmIQ users can use their existing farm map with hazards, water, landmarks, buildings, etc. already loaded. Alternatively, new users can build a farm map for the purpose of completing the FWFP but can also use that map as part of their everyday farm planning and management as well.

Additionally, external mapping resources can be integrated into the FWFP farm map as a shapefile, allowing flexibility to enhance a farmer’s farm map as desired.

All versions of FarmIQ will include the Freshwater Farm Plan tool, starting at $40 per month per farm.

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