Matt Barnard’s friends and family like to say that he’s thinking ahead, unique, “farming differently,” says Kelly Duzan, who supports the Barnard Farms Partnership with Fendt equipment and service. “He’s not in the ‘safe zone’ of farming… he’s not, ‘I’ve always done it this way,’” he says.

Being outside the “safe zone” of farming doesn’t mean the Barnards take wild risks; quite the opposite. An entrepreneurial spirit drives Barnard Farms Partnerships to new paths for progress, as well as new ideas related to but separate from farming itself.

The family operation, which includes Matt’s father, Ted, and brother, Brett, along with their spouses, spans six counties and takes a unique approach both to funding growth and farming the ground. By inviting a group of investors to fund land purchases, the family partnership has expanded to several thousand acres, and offers investors positive returns by careful use and review of data to maximize return, if not necessarily yield.

“We really look at dollars per acre versus bushels per acre,” says Barnard. “Sometimes, you can make more money raising 200-bushel corn than you can 240 or 260.” As Matt told FarmLife in 2019 (see the full story here), the Barnards might, for instance, select a corn hybrid for a field with poorly drained soil based on that hybrid’s nitrogen-use efficiency, rather than overall yield.

“If we know we’ve got ground that’s not as receptive to high volumes of nitrogen, we’ll look to plant corn hybrids that are really efficient,” Barnard said in 2019. “Instead of using 1.2 pounds of nitrogen to make a bushel, maybe they use 0.7 or 0.6 pounds.”

Today, data still play a significant role in the Barnards’ overall farming strategy, but they have found a way for the family and other farmers to further monetize the volumes of information they’re already collecting for other purposes.

Data Driving Business Beyond Farming

“Have you ever been doing something on Facebook or Amazon, and all of a sudden you get something in your feed about something you talked about and you wondered why that happened?” Barnard asks. “It's the data that's being pulled from your history and it’s being used to market to you. And we were thinking that that probably could happen in ag.”

As he described before, data sets are already prescriptive for hundreds of thousands of other farmers, but there is still benefit to be mined from data beyond selecting hybrids and prescribing inputs. “So Verdova was started,” says Barnard. “And it’s since now grown over 10 million acres with growers in 20 plus states that are allowing us to be the stewards of their information.” The company (based online at verdova.com) cleans and unifies data that farms are already collecting and markets it to companies willing to pay for it, with the farmer getting an 80% share on the sale.

And the benefit goes beyond the money. As Barnard describes, that data will help interested parties “better understand you as a customer, better understand maybe products that would fit or help unlock different programs, like sustainability, that you might be a fit for that you didn't even recognize,” he says. Farmers can join Verdova for free.

“As AI continues to evolve and as the technology continues to improve, we're able to capture so much more stuff,” he says. “And the things that you and I might think mundane, like the amount of usage of diesel fuel per acre, that's all of a sudden a really big deal for somebody that's trying to do something sustainable.”

Fuel use per acre has become a “really big deal” indeed as the Barnards convert their tractor fleet to Fendt. “Because (of) the use and the efficiency of a Fendt tractor, and only using 13 or 14 gallons an hour running at 1400 RPMs, I am a sustainably friendlier alternative than maybe my neighbor,” Barnard says. “And now all of a sudden, I've turned my just traditional corn and soybean operation into a specialty crop with only collecting the information from my Fendt machinery to do so.”

Fendt Is A Total Management Solution

The efficiency of the family’s first Fendt tractor, purchased in 2019, led to a progressive fleet conversion that continues to pay off. “It was proposed to us about something that was super efficient, super reliable, very easy to use,” Barnard says of the Fendt line. “(And we) started to say, ‘Hey, we need to explore other opportunities.’ So we bought a Momentum planter. And it was ahead of its time and it’s allowed us to be more efficient and productive and it’s got features that are unique to the industry,” he says. “And then jumped into the IDEAL combine side of things. And then went from one Fendt tractor to four,” he adds.

“We have to try and be better at what we do, and Fendt fits that,” he says. That started with realizing the full potential of the Fendt 1000 series of tractors. “I completely underestimated the versatility of a 500 horsepower front wheel assist tractor,” he says. “So we always thought about it as being a row crop tractor, a planter tractor. But we’ve bought one now that we've just replaced a four-wheel drive, 600 horsepower tractor.”

Duzan, who helped the Barnards build their Fendt fleet, says a demo helped the family see the potential of Fendt for every job. “He put a 500-horse Fendt 1050 on the same tool that the big 575 was running,” says Duzan. “Not only did it do the job with ease, but it also was running 2 miles per hour faster and burning 10 gallons less an hour.”

The Momentum planter increased planting speed and accuracy, especially on rolling land in some of the Barnards’ more remote farms. “The ability for that planter to plant fast, transfer its weight, but also go through a lot of different uneven elevations out in the field is a big deal,” Barnard says.

The IDEAL combine is “a completely different thing,” says Barnard. “Combining, for the first time in my life, has been fun. I actually just let the IDEAL harvest do its thing and it made clean samples and adjusted itself and it was really easy.” The Barnards will add a second IDEAL combine to the fleet this fall.

While the Barnards are impressed with how the machines perform individually, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. “So many people that I see get a Fendt tractor, the first thing I say to them is, ‘You’re going to get a planter, you’re going to get a combine, you’re going to get another one,’” Barnard laughs.

Why? Duzan explains Barnards’ fleet change as a complete management solution. Besides the speed and efficiency of the tractors, the farmer gets speed and accuracy from the Momentum planter, which means better, more consistent stands at harvest time. Then the IDEAL combine improves the grain sample while providing more capacity overall, faster unloading, and better residue management, “which is then tying back into spring planting season,” says Duzan. Full circle, full benefit.

“Quite honestly, Fendt is the only place where you’re going to find that,” says Barnard. Add the Fendt Gold Star warranty and the management solution is complete. “Knowing what that fixed cost is and knowing that we actually can push our equipment a little bit further than what we thought we could a combine or thought we could tractor or thought we could planter, it makes that net cost of our machinery number and that machine repair number a lot more manageable,” he says.

“And we are looking very much forward to what Fendt is going to bring in the future. They seem to constantly innovate and push that bar a little bit further. We've been spoiled and are starting to expect that,” Barnard says. “I think that we feel very confident we’re at the right spot to get us to wherever tomorrow’s going to be.”

Story by Jamie Cole

When your farming operation is spread across five counties, getting from field to field is no easy feat. For the Barnard family, based in Foosland, Illinois, a roundtrip journey to check crops puts well more than 100 miles on the farm truck. They call it their “ring of fire.”

“We’re pretty spread out right now,” says Matt Barnard, who operates Barnard Farms with his father, Ted, and brother, Brett. “We tried to build in 300- to 500-acre chunks, 7 to 10 miles apart, but you never want to be the guy who has to drive from end to end with the tractor.”

Shrinking their “ring” and increasing their efficiencies is just one of the future goals for this operation. While they may have come from humble beginnings, the Barnards now play in the big leagues of agriculture, where they’re thinking outside of convention to build their business.

Farming Foundations

Though their roots now run deep in east-central Illinois, the Barnard family originated in the southern part of the state. Otho and Eva Barnard relocated during the Great Depression.

“My grandparents were the oldest children in their families, and when the Depression hit, there were still a lot of mouths to feed,” Matt says. “You would think that the oldest son would get the farm, but it was just the exact opposite.”

The young couple moved north, and Otho found work as a hired hand. He and Eva would raise a family, including Ted. After many years of working for other people, Otho would eventually lay claim to his own acreage, starting Barnard Farms in 1944 with 120 acres.

Ted built on his father’s efforts. He wanted to offer his sons the opportunity to return to the farm, but he also wanted them to get experience elsewhere. Both boys attended the University of Illinois and started individual careers.

“I had a pretty wise father who said, ‘Hey, go out to the real world. The farm’s not quite big enough,’” Matt recalls. “So, we got day jobs. I not only learned from a lot of other good people, but I also learned from a lot of farmers. I came back to the farm full time in 2012.”

Inviting Investment

To continue expanding their farming operation, the Barnards adopted a novel approach, one that diverged from most traditional arrangements.

“We wanted to grow, so you have two choices, right? You either rent from your neighbor or somebody gives you ground,” Matt says. “Well, in our area, that’s not really viable.”

Instead, the Barnards recruited outside investors. With this infusion of capital, they were able to purchase farmland as it came up for sale. The family farming partnership now encompasses several thousand acres.

“One investor group has now grown to 23,” Matt explains. “We have them from Oregon to Texas to New York. We treat it as an investment for them. Just like somebody would get a statement on their 401(k), we do a yearly summary for their farm asset and help them diversify.”

To ensure their investors see positive returns, the Barnards have employed a unique strategy to maximize profit on every acre of corn and soybeans, whether that means maximum production or not. Matt likens it to the “Moneyball” approach employed by the Oakland Athletics baseball franchise in the early 2000s.

With a payroll roughly one-third that of large-market teams such as the New York Yankees, the A’s posted winning records and made the playoffs in 2002 and 2003 with a roster of players who were identified using analytics and advanced metrics.

“That’s what we’ve tried to do with our farming operation,” Matt says. “We get a strategy and then we work our way back. We really look at dollars per acre versus bushels per acre. Sometimes, you can make more money raising 200-bushel corn than you can 240 or 260.”

For example, just as the Athletics might select a player based on slugging or on-base percentage, rather than homeruns hit, the Barnards might select a corn hybrid for a field with poorly drained soil based on that hybrid’s nitrogen-use efficiency, rather than overall yield.

“If we know we’ve got ground that’s not as receptive to high volumes of nitrogen, we’ll look to plant corn hybrids that are really efficient,” Matt says. “Instead of using 1.2 pounds of nitrogen to make a bushel, maybe they use 0.7 or 0.6 pounds.”

The “Moneyball” method has led the Barnards to adopt precision agriculture. They implement variable seeding and fertilization and use drones and remote sensor technology to create specific prescriptions for managing in-season crop health. Matt says his brother, Brett, likes to use another sports analogy to describe what they do.

“He says it’s like that football coach who’s walking around with a laminated sheet,” says Matt, who in 2013 also co-launched Crop Copter, a business selling drones for agricultural applications. “It’s third and six, you’re down by four and it’s the third quarter. What play do you call? They’ve already scripted all that out.

“We have our script for the year. We’re going to follow it,” he continues. “It doesn’t always make sure that we have a successful outcome, but we’re trying to take the emotion out of farming.”

Drones and data may be the new tools of the farming trade, but Matt and Brett haven’t overlooked the values of drive and determination, values they are instilling in their young four children as they look to solve future issues of labor, capital and markets.

“If we’re not concerned about some of these things, there’s not going to be something that we can pass on to our kids,” Matt says. “If our kids are going to be successful, the business of farming is the first thing we’ve got to teach them.”

Story by Jason Jenkins