Two farming cousins have set their sights on revolutionising the farming and agricultural industry with a first of its kind app, Yokit.

James and John Fairlie, cousins and neighbouring farmers from Angus say the app provides game changing visibility on operations, driving the sustainability of farming businesses.

The Scottish Farmer: Farming cousins James and John Fairlie. Copyright - Grant Anderson Farming cousins James and John Fairlie. Copyright - Grant Anderson

The pair were frustrated by the excessive time spent on manual administrative tasks such as reviewing timesheets and processing payroll and invoicing and decided to create a bespoke digital platform.

James was UK Young Farmer of the Year 2017 and runs Fairlie Farming Co, a ware potato and cereals business together with a commercial scale biogas plant. John runs Balmirmer Farms' ware potato, cereals, and beef cattle enterprises. Before returning to the family farm, John qualified as a chartered accountant, following which he spent eight years in corporate finance roles.

John Fairlie, Co-founder, said: “The agricultural industry overwhelmingly uses verbal and manual methods to record and communicate key operational data. This often results in delayed and incomplete records that use a wide range of terms for similar tasks. This creates a huge margin for error as well as significant extra time spent by management decoding and interpreting data.”

Yokit provides on-the-go smartphone app-based worklog functions that enable everyone, from family-staffed farming businesses to multi-site operators to easily, and digitally record key information on the go including recording hours worked, yields, and diesel used.

James Fairlie, Co-founder, said: We want to make daily admin tasks easier for everyone in farming and so we designed Yokit to be incredibly simple for all users at all levels, whether it be a quick entry logging acres ploughed or generating invoices.

“The straightforward interface also gives farmers game-changing visibility on operations, with real-time access to information that can be easily analysed to drive enhanced decision making.

The Scottish Farmer: Farming cousins James and John Fairlie. Copyright - Grant Anderson Farming cousins James and John Fairlie. Copyright - Grant Anderson

“Running a busy farm day-to-day, while also having a detailed understanding of where immediate improvements can be extremely challenging, especially when essential information can only be collated from various sources, often well behind the point it could be impactful.”

The system took two years to develop working in collaboration with Kyle Kennedy who has previously developed mission critical systems including high profile projects, such as protecting London from airborne threats during the Olympic games.

Mr Kennedy said farming is a “traditional industry that is ready for digital transformation.”

He added: “UK Agriculture is facing a number of existential challenges including a severe lack of skilled machine operators and massive cost price inflation. The supply chain would also benefit from closer partnerships, driving productivity.

“Yokit’s worklog function coupled with automated invoice generation, payroll reports, holiday request, and tracking functions means the platform can be relied upon to effectively compile critical data that will drive the revenue, profitability, and ultimately the sustainability of farming businesses.”

The app, which requires a monthly or yearly subscription can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.