Updating: FBN Launching Farm Input Procurement Service
January 8, 2016 FBN Inputs today announces a farm inputs procurement service that provides significantly lower input prices to Farmers Business Network members, starting with ag chemicals. FBN Procurement Services enable FBN members to purchase direct from manufacturers to deliver the best prices in the market.
“Farmers are facing poor commodity prices without significant relief on crop input costs,” says Chief Operating Officer Larry Trebesch.
FBN helps members discover true market prices and negotiates and procures inputs on behalf of members according to their specific needs. This helps farmers access a national market of competing products at manufacturer-direct prices.
“The savings from going direct can be enormous. We’ve been able to find farmers 15-40% savings on popular ag chemicals,” says Trebesch. “The program helped one member save over $40,000 on chemicals alone and we’ve already delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and managed millions in transactions.”
Trebesch highlights “FBN Procurement was created in response to requests from our members to provide total price transparency, and an independent, unbiased evaluation of crop inputs performance—allowing cost savings to be passed along to farmers.”
FBN Procurement features the following custom offerings:
- Transparent pricing – no bundling, hidden fees, or complicated rebates.
- Standard prices for all members – no tech fees, one-off discounts, regional penalties etc.
- Best price guarantee – all members who make a purchase will be guaranteed the lowest price we are able to offer members between the time of purchase and delivery, even if that price is lower than their initial purchase price.
- Flexible fulfillment – choose between direct delivery and self pick up to save further.
- Time saving and simplicity – we take the hassle out of buying inputs—no more shopping around or painful negotiations.
“Most multi-million dollar businesses have specialists employed to manage procurement, but farmers lack these resources,” Trebesch says. “Through FBN Procurement Services, we put that purchasing power back into farmers’ hands.”
The FBN price and input product performance analytics are backed by the company’s cutting edge data science capabilities and rapidly growing agronomic network comprised of thousands of American farms spanning 18 crops in 28 states.
FBN Procurement is available only in states where FBN Inputs, LLC is licensed.
UPDATE (1:16 pm EST, 1/8/16): We reached out to a few ag retailers in the Midwest for comment on this news. Most have declined to do so thus far. We also reached out to FBN through its public relations rep at Charleston Orwig. Here is a short statement FBN CEO Charles Baron – who was traveling the day we reached out – provided via his PR rep:
“We always want our members to get the best prices, if they can get that locally that is fine. Providing price transparency is good for farmers. That’s what FBN and our procurement programs are all about. Helping our members get the best deals.”
We’d love to know what you, the audience, think about this controversial announcement. Please feel free to leave comments on this article (but be advised they may be republished or reused in CropLife magazine or other products) or reach out to associate editor Matthew J. Grassi at [email protected] or (440) 602-9165.
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