Most farm software is built by people who have read about that work. Sam Baulch lived it.
Who is behind FARMap?
Sam Baulch took over his family’s commercial beef and sheep operation near Hawkesdale in western Victoria in the mid-1970s running the operation until 2004.
That is close to thirty years of paddock rotations, joining dates, drenching rounds and shearing sheds, and thirty years of keeping the records that go with them.
Most farm software is built by people who have read about that work. Sam lived it.
What came before the app?
Not the app. The map.
In 2009, Sam launched Australian Mapping, a business built entirely around measuring and mapping farm properties. For more than a decade he sat down with farmers across the country and worked through the same conversation: how big is that paddock really, where does the boundary sit, and which country got treated last season.
Working across those properties, one thing kept coming up. As Sam puts it, quality assurance and accurate mapping matter to every farmer and he wanted a more affordable option available to family owned and operated farms.
That mapping background is the reason FARMap starts with the map. Paddock measurement is the foundation everything else sits on. Get the hectares right, and your spraying rates, fertiliser rates and stocking decisions all follow from something solid.
How did FARMap get built?
Development began in early 2018. Sam interviewed three Melbourne app developers before choosing the one who best understood what farmers need on a working property. The technical expertise came from their side, the farming knowledge came from his and the two together shaped what FARMap is today, launching in 2021.
Sam also put in the hours to build the technology skills himself, so the person answering your call understands both the farming and the app.
What does that background mean for the app?
It shows up in the decisions.
FARMap works offline, because Sam knows there are corners of a property with no reception, and the record needs to be made where you are standing. It syncs when the device reconnects.
It carries one flat subscription with unlimited users, because family farms bring in staff, contractors and the older generation, and every one of them needs to see the same map.
And it stays plain to use, because plenty of good farmers are new to digital tools. Sam hears from whole families using it, from the farm manager through to those still on the tools in their seventies and eighties.
Where does the support come from?
From Sam himself. Ring FARMap and you talk to the person who built it, using his experience running farming properties just like yours.
That is a deliberate choice. It also means every improvement made to the app since 2021 has come from a farmer ringing up with an idea that made sense.
Who founded FARMap? Sam Baulch, a former commercial beef and sheep producer from Hawkesdale, Victoria, who also founded Australian Mapping in 2009. FARMap launched in 2021 and is based at Warrnambool.
Does FARMap work without internet coverage? Yes. Records can be entered offline and sync automatically once the device reconnects.
How much does FARMap cost? One flat rate covering every user and every property: $40 a month including GST, $38 a month on the six-month plan, or $36 a month on the twelve-month plan.