Despite being raised on a farm, Kim Keller didn’t have any real interest in the agriculture industry while growing up. But today, she’s proud to be both farming and providing innovative technology that is helping the industry make positive strides.
Kim is the co-founder of Farm At Hand, an integrated cloud-based farm management software program that allows farmers to manage their entire operations, from seed to sales. Using the mobile app, farmers can record and instantly track their field activities, inventories, contracts, deliveries and equipment management. Farm At Hand also allows farmers to share information with the agribusinesses with which they work.
Kim’s decision to become involved with the agriculture industry came in 2011, when she realized her true passion lay in agriculture. She spent the previous six years working as an auto adjuster after graduating from University in 2006 with a Bachelors of Arts Honours in Native Studies. In 2011, she returned to her family’s farm to work during harvest. Shortly after, friends introduced her to Himanshu Singh, who had started a small software development company while finishing school.
Himanshu and Kim began talking about Kim’s farm and how her family kept track of their bin yard inventory. She explained that her family kept track of everything on one big piece of paper, but Himanshu was sure there must be an app that could make things easier. They looked into it and were surprised to find nothing available on the market. They decided to team up to develop an app to help Kim’s farming operations.
Farm At Hand officially launched in the App Store on April 26, 2012. After it received 500 downloads within the first few months, the pair realized they had something big. The app is now used by more than 21,000 farms across North America. The software is free for farmers to use, and the data ownership and privacy of the users is not compromised.
Kim never expected she would have this big of an impact on the agricultural industry. She said there’s a lot of room for new innovation in agriculture and she encourages other young entrepreneurs to take every opportunity to help guide this exciting period of change.