Farm Data
Moneyball For Farmers
If you don't have real-time data for your farm, you're like a baseball team from the 1900s -- gut and feel aren't as competitive as data and smarts.
The Gambler
Farming is tough business, and it's downright risky if you're keeping records the old-fashioned way. Luck isn't a strategy. Good tools give you an edge.
Joshua Farray
Mar 20, 2026
An interesting aspect of agriculture is that farmers are gamblers by nature. But being a gambler doesn’t mean you have to take unnecessary risks, it means you play the games where you think you can win. You gotta’ know when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em.
Farmers are gamblers by nature
I’ve been working in and around ag since my first job decades(!) ago. I’ve worked at fruitstands, in wholesale markets, tramped around orchards and fields, coordinated international shipping logistics, and – most recently – in HR Tech focused on agriculture.
Across the variety of experiences, one thing is consistent: agriculture is unpredictable.
Weather can bring an unseasonably warm winter followed by a late snow that confuses the plants. People might be solid and reliable for years and one day quit. Markets can turn a moneymaking crop into an unprofitable loser. Traffic can cause delivery timelines to get missed. Changing political environments can probably affect just about all of that, except maybe the weather.
And you know what…? Farmers get up and do it every day anyway. There’s strength in knowing that the world is uncontrollable but getting up and doing your job anyway. Strength… and a healthy appetite for risk.
The deck is stacked against you
Risk appetite makes farming possible, but managing that risk smartly is what makes farming sustainable. Risk calculations for your farm need to be dynamic and responsive just as if you were playing cards. Each card dealt changes the odds for the remaining cards. Each new regulation, lawsuit, investigation, employee… each new season - they all change your risk.
For instance, DOL Wage & Hour investigations. People have different mental models of their risk. The most common one I’ve heard is “I’m not worried because none of my employees are unhappy or would ever file a complaint”. That may be true, and fantastic for you if it is! It’s an outdated model though: what if you have a neighbor who has unhappy employees? Or, what if you have a neighbor who uses an FLC and their FLC gets investigated? Traditionally that probably wouldn't impact you, but today it might.
The government can, and does, look at other farms based on proximity to a problem. This wasn’t really a thing back in the day – it would take a lot of work for an investigator to look up common FLC (or H-2A) provider relationships, or to find all the farms within a radius of an existing investigation. Now those tools are readily available and put to use. In 2022 Mississippi, WHD focused on a specific region and identified violations in 44 employers.
The risk has changed as the government’s tools have improved. Your model needs to expand from “am I doing things right” or “are my employees happy”, to “is everybody around me also doing things right and are all their employees happy”. That’s a lot more risk!
Another increased risk is vendor reliability. Back in the day, you could buy a tractor and it didn’t matter if the dealer went out of business and probably didn’t matter too much if the manufacturer went out of business. In the past few years that started to change in very visible ways. More risk!
Software also has more risk these days. Subscribing to “software as a service” is distinctly different from buying software that you can install on your office computer. If you subscribe to a cloud-based service you are depending on their system being available when you need it and that their pricing will stay at an affordable level. That’s risky!
I don’t mean to scare anybody when talking about Software as a Service, that’s what FieldClock is. We are cloud-based, and we understand the gravity of you trusting us with your data. More on this below.
It’s time to start counting cards
In blackjack a player can get an edge by counting cards. Roughly speaking, a blackjack player with perfect strategy is wins 49% over time. As good as they are, they are still (over time) losing! If they count cards, they can gain an edge and change that to a 51% win rate. (I say “they”, because I couldn’t possibly count cards to save my life.)
Using outdated methods to track labor and compliance is akin to walking up to the table with no strategy and hoping to get lucky. You’re going to lose. It may not be on the first hand, but at some point the house will win. Generally this is in the form of audits and lawsuits, but you can also slowly bleed out if you’re not controlling your costs. You need a good strategy, good execution, and a little something in your back pocket to swing the odds in your favor.
Give yourself an edge
Given the increased risk of investigations, the increased cost of violations, and the availability of affordable solutions, farmers need to get rid of their paper workflows yesterday. If yesterday is too late, today! There are no two ways about it, going about things the old way is an unnecessary risk. Good tools give you a needed edge.
Using modern ag-focused software gives you that edge. But not all software is created equal. The app needs to work today and the platform needs to work for years. If you've never evaluated software vendors before, here's a quick overview of what you should be thinking about:
| Why you should care | Questions you should ask | |
| Maturity | Labor & compliance are tricky, especially timekeeping and pay calculation for ag. |
How long have they been in business? Do they have any industry partnerships? |
| Reliability | Your employees need to get their work done even when the internet is down or they broke their phone. |
What is the historic uptime for their service? Do they offer guarantees or SLAs? How fast can you replace broken devices? |
| Security | Cybercrime incidents (and the associated costs) increase every year. |
Do they have formal Information Security processes and policies? Do they undergo regular third-party testing of their processes and policies? Can they share any documentation (e.g. policies, audit reports) about their security? |
| Sustainability | Venture-backed tech companies are notorious for unprofitable business models. |
What is the regular price of the service after "sweetheart" introductory periods end? What happens to your data if they go out of business? |
| Compliance | You have to maintain your records for years, even if your vendor goes out of business. |
How long can your data live on their system and at what cost? How easily can you export your data if you change vendors? |
This is where I make the sales pitch and say FieldClock is the edge you need. 🙂
Why FieldClock?
-
FieldClock is seasoned. We’re about to celebrate our 11th birthday!
-
FieldClock is flexible. We have clients in 36 states and 5 countries and are an official Farm Bureau Member Benefit in over 2 dozen states.
-
FieldClock has amazing tech. Different apps for different purposes, available on iOS and Android.
-
FieldClock is secure and reliable. Third-party audited security and over 99.9% uptime.
-
FieldClock has amazing support. Bi-lingual, US-based specialists that are product and farming experts are only a phone call away.
-
FieldClock is in it for the long haul. FieldClock is run by farmers, not private equity. Our business is designed to be sustainable so we can be here for your farm when you need it for as long as you need it. This is also why we offer the FieldClock PriceLock guarantee. We aren’t trying to just win your business next year, we want to win your business forever.
- FieldClock is afordable. We understand the economics of running a farm in 2026 and our pricing is structured to make our platform available to family farms, enterprise farms, and everybody in between.
Nothing else even comes close. Get started today!
-josh