TELUS acquires ag data solutions provider Proagrica

By Shane Thomas

In November, there was a buzz that TELUS had acquired Proagrica. However, the news had not been publicly released until previous CEO of Proagrica, Graeme McCracken, shared a post on Linkedin with the heading: Telus Ag acquires Proagrica - when big is not beautiful.

Proagrica was previously owned by RELX, a publicly traded entity headquartered in England that is a provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

Proagrica is a company that has products for agribusinesses like Farmplan and Sirrus for managing agronomist workflow, leveraging geospatial data, and creating precision recommendations, along with a more recent acquisition in CDMS, a compliance platform that is leveraged heavily within the industry for its label database. Its CDMS asset is one of the most prominent in the ag industry, along with TELUS’ Agrian.

TELUS is a Canadian telecommunications company that embarked on an agricultural and downstream infrastructure software acquisition spree starting in late 2019. They have made close to a dozen acquisitions, including Agrian, Decisive Farming, Muddy Boots, AgIntegrated and TKXS.

TELUS’ stated aim has been to connect the value chain from farm to fork. From their 2020 agriculture launch announcement:

TELUS Agriculture optimizes the food value chain by leveraging data in new ways to increase efficiency, production, and yields, delivering better food outcomes for businesses and the end consumer. Connecting each piece of the agriculture value chain empowers farmers and ranchers, the agri-business industry, and agri-food, consumer goods and retail companies to leverage advanced data systems and artificial intelligence to streamline operations, improve food traceability, and provide consumers with fresher and healthier food.

TELUS has wanted to create an easy button for farmers, agribusinesses, and downstream entities by connecting data, enabling transparency and ultimately, delivering a one stop solution for the entire value chain.

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