Trevor Whittington: Do we stand to lose our farm service reps in the face of automation?

Agriculture has always relied on middlemen — livestock agents and ag chemical suppliers — each providing a service to farmers based in their local towns, but for how long?

Unfortunately in this day and age, many of their services are becoming redundant thanks to the centralisation of warehousing, overnight transport, and most importantly, the power of smart phones, trading apps and the internet to provide the service that real people used to offer.

Which raises the question: what is the future of these farm service reps when there is a parallel alternative market out there, one that can undercut the price that farmers pay for supporting local?

Middlemen in agriculture often claim they provide essential services to farmers—whether it’s convenience, parts, advice, or market insights.

But these days, more often than not, farmers can source these things themselves, without needing a local rep.

To be clear, I’m not dismissing the value of convenience — there’s no doubt local suppliers who live in town and offer a service to farmers are invaluable, but will they remain essential?

Look no further than the big corporate farms, miles from any country town, operating just fine without relying on local reps or even small communities.

Sure, this shift has hurt many small towns, particularly in the eastern Wheatbelt, but that’s a story for another time.

The reality is, large corporate farms tend to deal directly with Perth or simply order what they need online.

So for how long will farmers support their local reps and keep their towns alive?

In answer to the question I suspect that this generation of farmers will continue to understand the importance of paying a premium for local service and advice, but what about the wired-in next generation, the ones that have grown up with smart phones and who live online?

As farms get bigger will the next generation stay loyal, particularly when price transparency make it easier to justify buying online and having the daily truck deliver direct to the farm from Perth?

After all, the last generation stopped supporting their local Ford and Holden dealerships decades ago and in many cases, the local butcher, baker, and hardware store too.

What does that tell us about loyalty?

It tells us farmers are like everyone else and will vote, or rather buy with their feet, preferring big box stores in Perth or online shopping to shopping in their main streets.

So is it really so far-fetched to imagine a future where small towns across the Wheatbelt simply disappear?

At the rate of change we’ve seen over the past century, it’s not hard to imagine that by the time today’s farm kids are ready to retire, there won’t be any country towns more than 200km from the coast left for them to retire into.

In fact, by then even the cemeteries will be closed for business.

Today you only have to walk down the main street of any town in the Wheatbelt to see the writing on the wall.

Just as Amazon and home delivery have changed retail in the cities, the smartphone is replacing the “smart” middleman and when they go, our small farm service towns will likely go with them.