Farmers Edge is an online education company transforming agriculture around the world in order to restore sustainability and grow profits for farmers. Their approach has been made possible by a revolutionary investment platform that utilizes Blockchain technology.
The “agtalk farmers edge” is a product that promises to help farmers by predicting the best time to plant, harvest, and sell their crops. The company claims that they have created a new way of farming.
Farmers Edge (FE) is a forward-thinking digital start-up formed by Wade Barnes in 2005 with the purpose of assisting small rural farmers. Farmers Edge aimed to offer data-driven solutions to small farms in Canada in order to assist struggling farmers in optimizing crop rotation and increasing annual yields.
Satellite imagery would be used by the corporation to track the status of soils, present weather patterns, and estimate the best time to grow certain crops.
However, what seemed to be a wonderful concept at the time did not pan out. Farmers Edge went public in March 2021, launching an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange with a promising opening price of $20 per share. For the following month, the firm managed to maintain its high beginning price, but it began to deteriorate slowly as public suspicions of weak management and corruption spread.
Problems with finances and bad performance
Farmers Edge’s market capitalization is now $110 million USD, down from $791 million in March. This indicates the firm has lost approximately 86 percent of its entire worth in the last nine months. This raises a lot of warning flags since a firm with significant revenue growth normally doesn’t lose all of its trade volumes in such a short amount of time. What went wrong?
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Farmers Edge seems to have had a difficult year, both financially and in terms of management. During Q2-2021, the company’s sales fell, prompting investors to liquidate their shares in a panic. In August, the firm made their earnings data for Q2-2021 public, causing the stock price to drop by half.
We can see from the data from Q2-2021 that over $1.5 million in commercial contract subsidies did not re-subscribe in 2021, implying that the firm lost a significant amount of revenue during the year.
On top of that, Farmers Edge’s long-serving Chief Financial Officer, David Patrick, left in 2021, citing his dissatisfaction with the firm. It’s never a good omen when a company’s CFO leaves.
Farmers Edge’s poor management and decisions are to blame.
We can safely assume that Farmers Edge isn’t doing so well based on its low performance score in 2020 and 2021. But, for the purpose of historical accuracy, let’s look at the company’s alleged managerial difficulties.
Wade Barnes, the CEO of Farmers Edge, chose to hire friends and family members to high-ranking positions inside the firm — his wife was named CMO, and his closest buddy, Trevor Armitage, was named COO. Unfortunately, none of these persons has received the necessary training to be effective in their roles.
Closer examination reveals certain inconsistencies in these high-level jobs. According to Marina Barnes’ official biography, she urged the firm to grow into the CIS and US markets between 2009 and 2013, and that her efforts resulted in “multi-million-dollar sales prospects.”
The company’s Eastern European sector, on the other hand, accounts for barely 2% of total income. In addition, official Farmers Edge records now say that Marina Barnes has been the General Director of the company’s Russian division since 2016, causing some strange conflations.
The bottom line is that the firm’s CEO recruited unskilled and unprofessional employees to run it, causing the company to lose money and take a dive.
Employee turnover at Farmers Edge is astronomically high.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise, but the corporation that thoroughly mismanages itself does not seem to hang on to its personnel. Farmers Edge has seen a number of senior management roles go unfilled for a lengthy period of time:
- VP Technology Joel Duda – July 2019 – May 2021
- Perry Liu was an investor and board observer from March 2015 until March 2021.
- Lori Robidoux served as CFO and Chief Corporate Development Officer from 2005 to 2021.
- Jorge Padua is the Vice President of Operations for Latin America from 2016 until 2021.
It’s always strange when high-level roles have such a high turnover rate in such a short period of time. It denotes discontent inside the organization.
Negative feedback from customers
It’s understandable that a firm with such financial difficulties and a high personnel turnover rate would disappoint its consumers. Upon additional research, we discovered a slew of customer and staff evaluations, the most of which were unfavorable.
Management is once again to blame for the company’s issues. The organization will suffer if you recruit people who do not have the necessary education to do their job. When you add in managers and CEOs who don’t appear to care about their company, you have a raging flame of disgrace.
So, is Farmers Edge a good investment?
Certainly not. The corporation now offers a significant financial risk to all investors. The corporation has been bleeding money for many years, according to Q2 financial filings. The company’s stock has plummeted and doesn’t seem to have a snowball’s chance in hell of recovering.
The Farmers Edge has too many red flags to be worth investing in unless it undergoes a drastic transformation (new CEO, COO, and management).
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Farmers Edge a good company?
A: Farmers Edge is a highly reputed company known for their high quality and top notch customer service.
Why is Farmers Edge stock dropping?
A: Farmers Edge stock is dropping because their shares are losing value. The company recently became involved in a class action lawsuit, and as the price of soybean has dropped farmers have less money to invest into farming equipment.
Related Tags
- digital farming solutions
- farmer technology
