AgriKnect - Connecting Farmers & Skilled Ag Workers
According to the United States Department of Agriculture 2018 census, over a third of the country by acre is farmland. A third of these - some 320 million acres - are devoted to harvested crops, everything from corn & wheat to soybeans & pumpkins.
The Challenge
In recent years there has been tremendous advances in the technology used on farms. The newest planters can scream down fields at upwards of 8 mph, planting in perfectly straight and perfectly spaced rows. From the driver’s seat, they look like plane cockpits, and require experienced, tech-savvy workers to operate and troubleshoot them.
Understandably, it’s hard to find people who are able and willing to work on a farm, live near a farm, are available to work specific seasons and unspecific emergencies, and know how to operate very complex machinery.
Stakeholder Interview
Our clients Nick Hofer, Bob Trudeau, and Phil Thiesse asked us a simple question: “Why can’t it be easier to find skilled workers?”, and challenged us to devise a solution for:
Connecting farmers of all types
With a new generation of workers
Across the nation
At any time of the year
And for any length of time.
“Ok” we said. “Give us three weeks.”
Understanding the Space
We explored current job boards for agriculture and found that they were outdated, and required a lot of effort from workers to search for what they were looking for.
So we looked to other industries like freelance design, child and pet care, and travel for the methods they used in connecting two user groups.
Listening to the Farmers
We interviewed farmers to discover how they were finding workers, what the worker pool was like in their area, and how they go about finding the right skilled workers.
Farm Workers Feedback
And talked to farm workers to get a sense for how people communicated in the agriculture community, what they relied on to find work, and what they would need in order to adopt the kind of solution that our client envisioned.
A common theme that quickly emerged in each interview, and would be crucial in our design was..
Synthesizing the Findings
Many farmers had grown up working with their families’ and neighbors’ and many workers had never needed to fill out a resume - relying on their personal network and word of mouth to endorse worker’s strengths and capabilities.
We found nothing in weeks of research that satisfied and supported all of these needs.
AgriKnect - A New Experience
A first-round early stage prototype of the home page
A network of trust for an age of new technologies. The Agriknect platform is built on three main pillars….
As a platform for two audiences, Agriknect builds users' trust in the platform by treating farmers and workers as equally important; clearly showing steps for getting started and “how it works” information front and center on the home page.
To bring the trust farmers have in each other online, Agriknect establishes credibility with testimonials from other farmers, and professional endorsements and verified skills quizzes on worker’s profiles
Lastly, to establish trust in potential workers, specific categories and skills are used to match workers’ profiles to farmers’ job postings
We took our research, our feedback from farmers & workers, and our data synthesis. And we built our own job search platform completely from the ground up…
With a simply overwhelming field of opportunity, we chose to plant the seeds of farmer-worker connection in virtual space by mimicking the exchanges that exist today. Word of mouth recommendations become digital testimonials; a paper resume - a profile and list of endorsable skills; a network of connections digitized.
Next Steps
For Agriknect, next steps would be to survey farmers and workers for feature prioritization, add farmer endorsements for workers’ skills, and draft mobile browser and mobile app views. recommend prioritizing finalizations to the payment structure, determining appropriate marketing platforms and strategies, and devising a system of organization for content shared across all methods and devices.
Conclusion
The breadth and depth of feedback received from farmers and farm workers cannot be overstated, and the prototype represents a single seed on the farm of Agriknect’s potential.