FARMING management app Skan is past its start-up phase with founder and Northam resident Ryan Skamp saying they’re now looking to focus on getting the word out about the AI-powered tool.

“We’re just in an update phase but that initial start-up phase is past us,” he said.

“We’ve got a good number of paying users now.

“It’s a pretty fun stage to be in and it feels nice to get past that phase.”

Mr Skamp said all sectors in an industrial setting needed to adopt any kind of technology available to them to drive efficiency.

“There is a global food issue, technology can help close that food gap.”

Mr Skamp said he was a carpenter by trade but went to school with a lot of country folk.

“Through my mates, I found the industry (and) made a lot of connections.”

He said when he worked in the agriculture space, he saw inefficiencies between how machines communicated with each other.

“I was working on the farm in Moora and we just had some issues with machine communications.

“We had a lot of different brand machines and none of them really spoke to each other and there wasn’t really a program on the market that linked them together.”

He called his childhood friend and now technical founder at Skan Lachlan Ross to talk about his ideas on how to improve farming.

“He was the only software developer I knew,” Mr Skamp said.

“Turns out he could build (the program) as well.”

The app works by tracking the live location of machines doing an active job in a paddock.

“You can have five different machines out in five different cuts and everyone can collectively see what all the other machines have achieved or not achieved for the day.”

Mr Skamp said large-scale broad acre farmers who used a mixed fleet of machines would benefit most from the app.

“On a farm, you can’t just go for a five-minute drive and see what someone’s up to,” he said.

“Without either making a lot of phone calls or sending a lot of texts, they’ve not got a good solution to find out what’s been achieved for the day.

“Or if someone’s parked up for a long time, they might have a breakdown.”

He said reduced carbon emissions was another key focus achieved through the app.

“We’ve had a lot of guys who might go and drive to the wrong end of the paddock.

“Every time they’re in the tractor, playing a bit of guess work, they end up doing a lot more travelling which burns a significant amount of fuel.

He said the app acted like a co-pilot which made farms more efficient.

For more informatio contact Mr Skamp on ryan@skanfarming.com