Ten-Fold Productivity, Ten Fewer Callouts a Year: Joel Kelly's Connected Farm

Since having connectivity, it's improved our productivity and efficiency ten‑fold at least. My name is Joe Kelly. I'm a farmer in Western Australia, and we farm a 2,000‑hectare property about two hours north of Perth in a small place called Jingar. We're mostly a cropping farm, but we also dabble in a little bit of sheep.

Connectivity full stop was always a challenge on our farm. It was just always a pain — even trying to send a text message was often more than you could ask. So that then really limited us in being able to adopt new technologies that rely heavily on connectivity.

We've got the CommsXtend, and we've also got the Satellite on the Move as well, and we've had really good success using them across the property. Connectivity's really changed how we do operations around here. It's increased our efficiency in ways we can't describe, especially on the precision side of things. Being able to utilize the remote support services our machines provide, we've had instances where there's been an issue with the boom spray, and I've been able to remote in and help Dad to get him going, which has saved hours in callout times, mucking around over the phone, and trying to find a signal.

Having connectivity on the farm has really allowed us to experiment and use digital farm management software. In our case, we use the FieldOps platform from CNH. What it's allowing us to do is have more accurate record‑keeping and management of everything across the farm, and without connectivity that simply wouldn't have been possible. It's making stuff like spray records, harvest tracking, all our inventory management — what used to be a really painful, slow task of grabbing USBs and reading what we've put in diaries — we can now just use one bit of connected software, and it just makes life so much easier.

The cost savings for us have been massive ever since getting connectivity. Being able to utilize the remote support services built into machines has saved us at least ten callouts, I'd reckon, in this year alone. The cost savings have really come from just continuously being able to work. It used to be if you had to make a phone call or you had an issue, we'd have to stop what we were doing and drive five or ten minutes just to find a signal. Now we can continue to work in the tractor wherever we are and use our phones and communicate with each other, which has been awesome.

Also, just peace of mind knowing no matter where you are on the farm, you can talk to someone if you need to. Experience with Connected Farms has been nothing short of fantastic. The whole team are amazing, really easy to work with, and they also have a shared passion for agriculture and farming, which is really nice to see. Really look forward to working with them more in the future.