A Co Down teenager already has around 150 farmers on a waiting list to use a new farm management app he hopes to launch this August.

Developed by 16-year-old Ben O’Connor, who hails from a dairy farm outside Castlewellan, FarmFlow is currently being tested on a number of farms across the island of Ireland.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Ben said the aim of the app is to cut down on paperwork and simplify management on farms.

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Dashboard

Included within the main dashboard on the app is a Tasks section, where a farmer can assign different jobs and responsibilities to those working on the farm.

There is also a Herd Hub, where rations fed to various groups of stock are listed, as well as a medicine cabinet to track drugs used and an animal registration page from which births, deaths and movements can be recorded on NIFAIS.

Ben is in discussions with both the Livestock and Meat Commission and Bord Bia around getting his medicine feature recognised as an approved method of recording usage for quality assurance schemes.

Developments

He is also keen to develop a signals feature, which could be used to flag various issues, from cattle that have had repeated health treatments, to the likes of farm safety improvements required on the farm.

Alongside that, is the potential to add in agronomy advice linked to soil analysis and livestock performance data, to include in the case of beef finishing units, when cattle are likely to be ready for slaughter.

In the initial stages, Ben said the system will be free to use.

“I am thinking it will be free for the first year. We are going to try to monetise it in other ways, without pinning an extra burden on farmers,” he explained.

Gift business

FarmFlow is not the first foray into business for the teenager. When aged 14 Ben started a business called Giftery which supplied gift boxes for holiday homes.

“We did about 200,000 boxes in two years and we had 13 staff when it was sold to a company in England last October,” he explained.

Ben is currently finishing his GCSE’s at Lecale Trinity Grammar school in Downpatrick, before starting an apprenticeship at Unilever’s head office in Kingston, England this September.