Sharing Economy Now Available For Farmers Worldwide

AGRISHARES, a marketplace to list, discover, rent or hire agricultural equipment, has launched its online platform in September 2015 – www.agrishares.com. The service matches renters’ needs with owners’ available assets and resources. AGRISHARES mission is to build an online marketplace (or ‘sharing economy’) for agricultural machinery, equipment and custom hire services. It is currently available in English and will soon become available in other languages as well.

With prices high and rapidly growing, owning agricultural equipment has become a luxury. Farmers tie up a lot of capital into machinery (up to 30%) whilst it gets used only 1-5% of time – 300-400 h/year for tractors, 200 h/year combines, some even less than 100h/year. On top of that, the ownership costs are very high – age is the main depreciation factor of the machinery, while the amount of usage relates mostly to Repair & Maintenance expenses. Farmers’ incomes usually cannot justify these type of investments so they are already considering options beyond the traditional method of purchasing equipment for obtaining machinery services.

“Agrishares is the easiest way for farmers to monetise equipment in their possession, make extra income and reduce the burden of ownership. It also empowers farmers providing access to any machinery and equipment available in their proximity. Farmers won’t need to buy what they can rent from others,” says Boris Petrenj, CEO and co-founder.

“We will soon introduce a review and rating system for all users with the aim of building a trusted community”, said Milutin Nikolić, co-founder and CTO. ”Scheduling and record keeping tools would also make life easier for farmers.”

Local agriculture has so far been missing out on this approach as well as the potential of new social technologies. AGRISHARES increases the use of existing agricultural resources, optimises efficiency and reduces costs for both owners and those renting. When machinery is shared its value increases for the farms, which brings benefits for the entire community.

AGRISHARES – Rent or hire agricultural machinery worldwide 
Agrishares was initiated in June 2015 by the team residing in Italy, Serbia and Switzerland. The project is funded by FRACTALS (Future Internet Enabled Agricultural Applications, FP7 project No. 632874), under the funding framework of the European Commission.