Cultivating Success: How a Mid-Sized Organic Farm Can Transform Operations with Farmbrite
- Joshua Brock
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
In our Cultivating Success series of articles, we drill down into a variety of use case example scenarios, using stories representative of Farmbrite’s wide variety of farms, ranches, and agricultural operations from around the world. Our goal is to demonstrate both the breadth and depth of Farmbrite’s capabilities in helping farms of all sizes improve their operations, both in the back office and in the fields.
Running a small to mid-sized farm today means managing more than soil and seasons. This is even more so the case when that farm works to maintain one or more certification standards such as the USDA/NOP Organic, Certified Naturally Grown (CNG), Certified Sustainably Grown (CSG), or any handful of others.
Farmers juggle certification paperwork, crop planning, livestock records, equipment maintenance, financial tracking, weather disruptions, and the increasing pressure to make every input and labor hour count. Many farms rely on paper notebooks, spreadsheets, and memory, systems that work well until the operation grows, a key employee leaves, or certification season arrives.
This case study examines how Meadowview Organics, our hypothetical, 75-acre certified organic vegetable and livestock operation, adopted Farmbrite to streamline management, improve profitability, and regain control of day-to-day operations. While every farm is unique, its story reflects challenges shared by many organic farmers and shows how we've seen digital tools make a meaningful difference.
Let’s take a look at the topics we’ll be discussing:
The Challenge: Growth Outpacing Old Systems
Finding a Solution: Why Farmbrite, farm management software?
Implementation: Step-by-Step Improvements, Not Overnight Change
The Impact: What Changed After a Full Season with Farmbrite
A More Confident, Resilient Farm Operation
The Challenge: Growth Outpacing Old Systems
Meadowview Organics grew steadily over ten years, adding more CSA subscribers, rotating more acreage into vegetable production, and building new revenue streams with pastured poultry and cut flowers. The owners, Carla and Ben, managed most of their records using:
A collection of worn notebooks
Shared spreadsheet files that didn’t stay updated
Hand-drawn field maps
Daily texts to their crew to track labor and activities
Paper folders for organic certification documentation
None of these systems seemed problematic individually. But together, they created constant inefficiencies.
The most significant pain points included the following:
Organic Certification Documentation
Every season, certification renewals felt overwhelming. They struggled to pull together spray logs, seed invoices, rotational records, and input receipts scattered across binders and email threads. They frequently spent 20–30 hours preparing for inspections.
Crop Planning and Field Management
With 40+ vegetable varieties rotating annually, field plans changed frequently—from sudden weather shifts to pest issues. Their spreadsheet-based approach didn’t scale, and they struggled to track:
What had been planted and in which fields and beds
Yield data from previous seasons
Actual vs. planned harvest windows
Livestock Tracking
Their poultry and sheep rotations required timely updates on feed usage, batch weights, medical treatments, and pasture moves. Much of this information existed only in Carla’s memory or scattered pages in her notebook.
Labor and Efficiency
Crew members didn’t have a centralized place to see daily tasks. Work assignments often changed based on the weather, but communicating those changes in real time caused delays.
Finding a Solution: Why Farmbrite?
After evaluating several tools, Meadowview chose Farmbrite because it offered an integrated, farmer-friendly system that handled both crops and livestock while supporting organic certification.
They were especially drawn to Farmbrite’s:
Mobile-friendly interface (usable in the field, online, and offline)
Crop, livestock, and equipment tracking on the same platform
Certification-ready activity logs
Recordkeeping designed for organic, diversified farms
The farm began gradually—starting with crop planning—then expanded into livestock and financial tracking.
Implementation: Step-by-Step Improvement, Not Overnight Change
Carla and Ben set aside two winter weeks to begin the transition. Their approach may help similar farms adopt Farmbrite successfully:
Representing Field Layouts & Maps
They digitized their field boundaries, beds, acreage, and infrastructure. Farmbrite’s mapping tools let them visualize their entire farm boundary, animal enclosures, fields, bed, irrigation - everything they needed to see their operation at a bird’s eye view.
Adding Previous Years' Data
Instead of migrating every log, they entered only the last two years of essential records — enough to spot trends without drowning in old paperwork. In many instances (livestock, grow locations, crop types, equipment, climate logs, and more!), using Farmbrite’s import templates, getting that data into their Farmbrite account was as simple as uploading a spreadsheet. When needed, they also had the ability to manually enter whatever additional data was needed.
Creating Their Upcoming Season Plan
They used Farmbrite’s planting workflow to build a realistic, flexible schedule:
Onboarding Employees
Crew members received mobile access limited to tasks. This empowered the team to log activities immediately, not at day’s end.
Shifting Livestock Data
Once crops were set up, they added poultry batches, grazing rotations, medical logs, and feed tracking.
The Impact: What Changed After a Full Season with Farmbrite
After one full production season, the changes were tangible—not only in time saved but in clarity and confidence.
Organic Certification Preparation Shrunk from 30 Hours to 4
Every record required for certification—input applications, harvest logs, seed sources, fertility plans—was housed in Farmbrite. They exported their reports and emailed them to their certifier ahead of the inspection.
Farmbrite includes a wide variety of automated, already included reports for livestock (grazing, health and wellness, inventory, production) and crops (planning, production), as well as accounting and financial reporting. Additionally, you can create your own custom reports to tailor your reporting just as you need it.
Yield Data and Records Improve Crop Planning
By using Farmbrite’s yield tracking, Carla and Ben uncovered surprising trends:
Their early-season carrots consistently underperformed compared to fall plantings.
Their greenhouse cucumbers produced 18% more in compost-amended beds than in tilled soil.
Their salad mix fields showed clear compaction signs in year three of continuous use.
With real data—not assumptions—they shifted rotations and amended fields proactively.
Livestock Records Became Clear and Actionable
Farmbrite provided immediate insights like:
Feed conversion rates for poultry batches
Pasture rest periods
Breeding and medical histories for sheep
Real input costs per animal
This allowed them to adjust stocking density, reduce feed waste, and identify which sheep consistently produced the best lambs.
The Crew Became More Efficient
Daily task lists in Farmbrite reduced morning “talk time” by half. Crew members saw their assignments in the app, marked tasks complete, and logged issues immediately.
Ben estimated that better communication saved 3–5 labor hours per week, time that went directly into harvest, bed prep, or greenhouse management.
Financial Tracking Revealed True Profit Drivers
By tagging expenses and yields to specific crops and livestock groups, Meadowview learned:
Salad greens brought the highest per-bed revenue.
Potatoes were profitable only at scale—something they didn’t have.
Pastured broilers delivered dependable revenue but required precise scheduling.
With clarity, they refocused on high-value crops and reduced acreage on less profitable ones.
A More Confident, Resilient Operation
Today, Meadowview Organics uses Farmbrite as its operational hub:
Crop planning is easier and more accurate
Certification paperwork is no longer dreaded
Livestock data drives smarter decisions
Crew communication is smoother
Finances reflect reality, not guesswork
While no digital tool eliminates the unpredictability of weather or pests, Farmbrite has helped this organic farm operate with more structure, better records, and greater confidence in the choices they make each season.
For small and mid-sized organic farms, especially those growing in complexity, Farmbrite offers a way to bring clarity to the chaos and keep the focus where it belongs: on healthy soil, quality crops, and sustainable growth.
