5 instruments for efficient management of the land bank

The land is the key asset of any agro-producer and the basis of its activity. Before the opening of the land market, more and more companies are asked how to conduct a qualitative audit of the land bank and avoid the emergence of “chess” in the future. After all, the treatment of the divided areas in contrast to the treatment of the consolidated land mass creates many difficulties for agrarians.

“Chess is one of the main problems of the land bank of Ukraine. Its emergence within the framework of the massive management of the agro-company is an instrument of unfair competition and the work of raider groups, the problem of legal support of leased land, the impossibility of building high-quality agricultural land, and the inexpedient economic costs of business, etc.

Solving this problem is an extremely difficult task, but the powerful development of agtech gives agrarians tools to prevent the emergence of “chess”.

It-solutions are available in AgriChain Land, which is part of AgriChain’s AgriChain management portal. AgriChain Land is an online system for managing the land bank.

“Our team worked on the solution for two years, and its improvement and expansion of functionality continues today. We are constantly gathering feedback from various agribusiness representatives to complement the product with new opportunities,” said Maxim Sukmanyuk, Technical Director of AgriChain.

AgriChain Land offers tools for efficient management of the land bank.

Visual data analysis

The system allows you to create your own cadastre map, which will be applied both to your own and external sites, to load or create in the system contour fields, and then proceed to analysis. Users have the opportunity to analyze information by different attribute data of sites, by exchange of sites, fields, contracts, and counterparties on the map. There are several types of layers for visual analysis in the system.

Technological layers. They have generated automatically in the system based on the attributes and geometry of objects in the database. With the help of technological layers, there is an opportunity to quickly filter data concerning the term of validity, status, and type of contracts, by types of sites, forms of ownership, types of documents on the property, and other important parameters, to display on the map of exchange of land plots, disputed areas (legal component) and other data.

In addition, AgriChain Land has the ability to map the technical losses in the land, reprocess, and undertreatment fields, and it can calculate the geometry and thus calculate the area of these indicators and consolidate these data in the form of reports.

Koristuvatski layers. These map layers are created by users themselves using built-in object creation tools or by downloading data from files. The system allows the creation of polygons, multi polygons, markers, and polylines. For each new type of object, there is a possibility to create separate details for filling. With the help of user layers, it is possible to display on the road maps, atypical exchange, nature protection, reserve zones, elevators, factories, irrigation systems, gas pipelines, and any other important objects, to put on the map sanitary, environmental protection and other zones.

Contract control

The management of contracts with contractors, their structuring, and constant monitoring is not only the basis for the management of the land bank of the agro-company, but also the guarantee that the company will avoid risks, such as loss of harvest on the plots treated without legal grounds, or loss of the land bank due to a lack of due process. Contract control is a guarantee of the sustainability of the land bank.

AgriChain Land has the ability to work with the contract registry in a convenient format (data visualization on the card or in the form of a table data register), create contract templates and use them when drawing up, and organize the contract archive using QR codes, form contracts and additional agreements on business processes.

The importance of fixing all agreements on land exchanges should be highlighted as a separate item. The program implements the functions for the creation of both formal and informal exchange agreements, fixing of separate agreements, agreement of land exchanges on the basis of business process, control of areas transferred and received on an exchange, and separate reporting on exchanges.

Reports

Consolidation and analysis of data are necessary for every process, especially in the process of quality management of the land bank. Company managers need top-level reports to quickly see information about the total amount of land in the plot, land treated without legal grounds, and to compare the data with the area of land leased by the enterprise, while it is important to display this information with a link to the field contours. For land managers, more detailed reports are needed with the possibility of moving from the top level of data to the very areas from which the data is generated. The reports will not only help to make the right management decisions but will also make the work of specialists of the Land Department more effective.

Each AgriChain Land unit contains reports for specialists at all levels working with the land. For example, the report on consolidation of the land bank, the contour of the branch, the report on the land exchange, the report on technical losses, the report on the term of contracts validity, the stability of the land bank, the status of registration and many others.

“We constantly analyze the land use area and monitor processing for technical losses, fuel deposits, etc. Some sit and wait for the sale of their share, others decided that they want to try to process their land themselves. We can not influence it? this is the right decision for these people. But thanks to the powerful system of reports in AgriChain Land we keep our hand on the pulse and effectively manage the land bank”, — said Galina Barska, Head of Land Resources Department “Astarta-Kyiv”.

Budgets

The agribusiness market decreases with each year, while the cost of rent of shares increases. Budgeting for land-use costs is an important stage of good governance. As of today, the land use budget is not only the cost of rent of shares, all companies use motivational programs, and participate in charitable, and social projects, and not only. The budgeting tool in AgriChain Land enables to create of budgets both by the organization and by agriculture on the basis of different groups and cost items: For example, advances, costs of lease agreements, motivation of tenants, rent, emphyteusis, contract, additional costs for rent of shares and other. When creating budgets, both natural and monetary forms of payments can be used.

Work in a unite system

The tools described above are not new, and most companies use them in their daily work, but work with each tool is often performed in different programs without the ability to quickly combine these data for further analysis.

AgriChain Land is a system consisting of a web application and an integration module up to 1C. Two-way integration automatically moves data between applications. In general, working in a single system of land bank management helps:

collect and store historical data in one place;
avoid errors of manual data entry into several control systems in the company;
simplify the work of specialists and improve communications within the company;
to form and upgrade the task management for land managers.

“AgriChain invites agro-producers to the constructive dialog, exchange of experience and best practices. We offer to combine AgriChain platforms, which will allow at all stages of the production process to plan and manage it qualitatively, to control risks, thus increasing the efficiency of each particular producer, and to improve the system through consolidation of best practices and experience of all participants in order to increase the efficiency of the industry as a whole”, — Notes the director of AgriChain Natalia Bohacheva.

The industry is rapidly developing, despite a number of problems and challenges facing modern agrarians. Our agrarians are already using machinery, seed material, and agricultural products from world producers, and more and more companies are beginning to engage in accurate land farming and investing in technology to boost their crops and increase their profits in the future. However, some agro-producers sometimes forget to control the first source of their activity — the land they process. A permanent audit of the land bank and high-quality management will help farmers to consolidate the land bank and use new technologies in the field in a high-quality manner.