← The Edge of Risk Podcast by IRMI
The Edge of Risk Podcast by IRMI
Paperwork Risk: How Digital Forms Are Saving Farm Operations
00:19:41
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to the Eduverse podcast. I'm Joel Applebaum, the Chief Content Officer for ermi. And in this podcast you'll get another example of the real world challenges farmers can face. I'm pleased to have here as our guests today Lara Goldmark, who is the founder and CEO of Z Form, and Laura Napoli, co founder and head of marketing and partnerships. Lara and Laura, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:33]
B
Hi, I'm Laura and thanks, Joel, for having us on today.
- [00:37]
C
Hi, this is Laura. Thanks for having us.
- [00:39]
A
Awesome. I'm really glad to have you both on here and it's a mouthful. Laura and Laura. So I hope I can keep this right for the whole podcast. We first learned about Z Form after the USDA Agricultural Outlook and and it caught our attention right away as insurance professionals. I would love it if you could walk us through what the app does and the real world challenges that inspired you to create it.
- [01:07]
B
Sure. You know, the app is actually part of a broader approach to government efficiency. It's something that we developed a while back when I was posted in Morocco to help implement a trade agreement that had been signed with the United States. And there were US investors, US importers, who wanted to get their goods into the country. And the Moroccan government really wanted to make it easy. So we developed really a whole approach that included a kind of a front office experience, if you'll call it that, which is where the investors or traders would show up and what was it that they went through. And we then continued to work all across Africa and Latin America. So we were working internationally and one of our clients, an ngo, said to us, hold on, you need to come over to the US Side. We've got some things to solve here with usda. And that was how we ended up working in the US And I'd love for Laura to tell you a little bit too, because she is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we launched our first pilot. We started in Puerto Rico and in Texas as our first two places.
- [02:09]
C
That's right. And we're building what Lara and I like to call the buy now button for bureaucracy. We want to bridge the gap between hard working people's intentions and their ability to actually act on them. We see that there's such a space between your intention and action. And a lot of the times it has to do with paperwork, it has to do with bureaucracy. And that's certainly what we found in Puerto Rico with farmers and ranchers there. We had this pilot. We have had this pilot going with the coffee growers there in Puerto Rico who Were, you know, struggling to even get registered with usda. And so we wanted to build something that could really address it. And this comes really from a belief that we don't think that frictionless experiences. You know, when you think buy now button, you think about commerce, right? You think about being able to buy an airplane ticket on your phone, you think about being able to buy anything on Amazon. Well, we don't think that that should be a reserved experience, only for commerce. We think that it should be done in the context of public services and bureaucracy. And so we're making paperwork painless. And we started with that group, as Lara mentioned, of farmers and ranchers in the US and specifically in Puerto Rico, who were facing an uphill battle to even understand what kind of paperwork they needed to file in order to register and have access to a lot of the programs available to them.
- [03:38]
A
Awesome. I mean, it sounds like a real challenge for farmers. And you mentioned front office, back office. And I'm wondering if you can break down what those mean in this context and how they show up in day to day operations, you know, for our listeners.
- [03:56]
B
Yeah, thanks, Joel. That is a really key question and it is something that distinguishes how we approach, approach this issue of streamlining. So you know how when you have software people come in and they map a process, they give you this piece of paper with all these arrows. We actually make two maps. We make a map for what we call the back office, which is what goes on in the government and what needs to get done. And we separate that out from what goes on in what we call the front office, which is where you, if you were a farmer, rancher, would show up wanting to submit your documentation or get something. And why? Because we don't want the government to inflict the bureaucracy on the person in the front office. We really want to keep the two separate. We think they should each have their own interface. They should each be able to do what they need to do as quickly as possible. So you're going to hear us talk about that. And it's different from, you know, in tech, what you call a front end and a backend. So the front office will have a front end like an interface, and it will have a back end like a customer service or a database, APIs and the same thing for the back office. So it's really two systems, not one. They talk to each other. The one on the outside is easy and the one on the inside does what it has to do for the government.
- [05:12]
A
Awesome. Because, you know, government efficiency sounds like a little bit of an oxymoron to me. So I appreciate, Lara, you clearing that up for us. And federal ag applications often get tripped up by the smallest errors of missing information. I've heard stories. So how does your application catch those issues before submission? And what kind of impact have you seen on the approval rates and processing times?
- [05:39]
C
That's right. And, you know, Lara just talked about that difference between front office and back office. And we actually, part of our process was to spend some time with the stakeholders that are in the back office in several, you know, pilot county offices. And we're talking about USDA specifically, which is kind of the first set of processes that we have on our app. And, you know, we wanted to understand, we needed to understand the needs of each field on these forms in painstaking detail. And we identified that some details, you know, were handled differently in some places across the county offices. So some counties did it differently from another. And also that the information on forms and what was expected to be on forms was not always available online. And so this was specifically our pilot, our first procedure, as we call them, administrative procedure on the app, which was to get your farm number to get registered with usda. Zfarm's work really became a forcing function for those offices to all agree to a standardized way of handling the 77+ use cases that we uncovered from just this one single process that we had on the app. And so what we've done in the app is front load that information through the user's experience. We've rephrased the questions, we've kind of turned it into a guided questionnaire. And they're not in legalese anymore. They're, you know, in plain language. And we've added detailed hints for each of the fields. All of that information that we learned from the back office stakeholders, we front loaded it, we put it into detail, detailed hints, and we made it really clear what is required versus optional to answer. And so, you know, one of the things I like to point out is you would think that you don't need a detailed hint for your first name and last name, but as it turns out, it's really crucial that it matches your Social Security information. And so that's one of those tiny details that you just mentioned that if you, you know, it can trip up your application and it can get sent back to you. So all of that information is in the hints in the app. You know, we also develop other resources to accompany the experience. So we have an information site called MyFarmNumber.com where producers can just input they can plug in four or five details about their farming operation and they can see exactly what documentation they're going to need to bring in their particular case to get them started. And, you know, another important aspect is that the info sits with you as the farmer or the rancher. Right. We believe that people should own their own data and control their own data. And that means that if there are any changes that happen with you, you get married, you change your last name, whatever has to happen, you are then in control to submit an update to your information. So we find that, you know, all of these features combined really reduce errors at the time of submission. And then on top of that, we are doing a level of QA before sending the applications through to the county farm service office because we want this experience to be easier for them too. And the proof has been in the pudding of the work that we've put in to make sure that those applications are accurate. So far in our pilot In Puerto Rico, 100% of the farmers that have used the app there have received their farm numbers and the processing times have gone down from months that it used to take long months to weeks.
- [09:11]
A
I think that's awesome. And Lara and Laura, we know that insurance agents and claim professionals can worry a little bit about downstream consequences of bad data, and bad data can result in incorrect premiums being charged, issues at claim time and more. So a couple of things is like, how do you ensure your workflows stay current with the changing USDA, U.S. department of Agriculture, FSA and RMA? I want you to define what those are. Right. Because they have rules and forms and definitions that apply to agriculture as well. And how do you address if a regulation or form changes mid season?
- [09:58]
B
Thanks, Joel. There's a couple ways that we address it. And to be honest, the way that's the most effective is that we have a number of touch points, including not just the federal agencies, but also community based organizations and growers associations. And so we usually know about the changes coming down the pike before they hit. We do directly consult and monitor all of the key public electronic sources of information and we make sure to update things like the OMB forms, which you've got to be using the most recent one or the application can be rejected.
- [10:31]
C
Boo.
- [10:32]
A
I'm going to stop you there because I'm trying to de acronym this for our agents and brokers and insurance carrier partners. So listen, what's an OMB form? Laura?
- [10:41]
B
So an OMB form is a form that's posted on a website and it belongs to the Office of Management and budget, and that actually governs what all federal agencies are allowed to ask you for. So, and some of them are, you know, they have a date on them and, and so you want to be using the most recent version. They do change, but not that often. And the other acronyms you mentioned, fsa, Farm Service Agency, rma, Risk Management Agency. So those two organizations, as you know from the insurance industry, collaborate and share some information, but there is some duplicate entry still. Nrcs, National Resource Conservation Service is another one that has an agreement with farm service agencies. So some of the forms that a farmer rancher will be asked to fill out at the very beginning are related to the mandate of the Resource Conservation Service. So yeah, those would be some of the key acronyms to remember.
- [11:34]
A
Great. I love it that you're kind of taking all that bureaucracy and making it simple for the farmer or the rancher. I think that's, that is really cool. And documentation matters, you know, during audits, during claim disputes and program reviews, what kind of audit trail does your app create and how can that documentation be used later by agents, adjusters or risk managers? If a producer faces a compliance review, a claim challenge or disaster aid reconciliation. Right. At the end of the day, this is meant to help farmers in the event of a disaster.
- [12:17]
C
Sure. So producers are responsible for the accuracy of the information that they're providing. We promise that we will only share it if they request us to do so. That said, once they do provide it, we store it securely and then they can access it, you know, if they request it. And in addition, they can choose to create an account where they will have the history of all their transactions or what we call administrative procedures and any documents that they have uploaded in their profile and you know, whether they have an account or not, they will always receive a receipt of service at the end of the transaction which has a copy of their filled out and signed application and copies of any documents submitted and you know, a timestamp to all of that. So that's kind of on the user's experience part.
- [13:10]
B
Right.
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C
They have that record that now sits with them. Additionally, we have built a backup system that contains an A to Z audit trail for all documents signed with our E sign compliant signature. And that includes all levels from front end and back end to the database to storage and backup, have detailed audit. So we have gone through pains to make sure that this is retrievable and specifically in the case of producers, that they are in control of the information. But then that also means that they are responsible for that information.
- [13:47]
A
Great. And producers and agents and insurers all want clarity on who bears the risk. Right. So if a farmer relies on your app and application and an application error still occurs, how is that responsibility handled? And what should agents or insurers understand about liability disclaimers or reliance on digitally assisted submissions?
- [14:15]
B
So thank you for that question. You know, as Laura said, it is the farmer or rancher's responsibility to ensure that the information is accurate. Now, assuming that we have the accurate information and our system is transmitting that, then what we've tried to do is make it really clear so that if somebody's signing, they know what they're signing or agreeing to. Are they clear? Are they certifying and declaring something legally? Are they just putting their name to say this came from me? As Laura talked about too, there's also this storage advantage in the old system. You would sometimes submit stuff and then not have access to it. And so here you've got a copy of everything. But I think the most important thing to remember, especially you mentioned digital transmission and we've come up actually against this recently. The E Sign act is designed to enable people to sign digitally. Neither the citizen or business person nor the public sector agency is actually required to accept the E signature. So we need to make sure that our E Signature is compliant with what Farm Service Agency is doing that is on us to provide that service to the producer. And those standards do change. And these are one of the things that as we mentioned, we have our, we are monitoring and we're actually upgrading our signature because of that.
- [15:33]
A
Great. You know, I believe that duplicate data entry is a major source of mistakes. Right. So I'm wondering if your platform. You know, it seems like we're right in this middle of this AI revolution and it's impacting everyone from farmers to insurance carriers and more. Right. So is your platform designed to integrate with crop insurance records and newer technology? Last year at our conference we saw these Precision Ag dual planters. It's incredible. Running themselves or farm management software. And I'm just wondering what you offer so far in terms of integrations.
- [16:14]
C
Absolutely. I mean, this is one of the most valuable pieces about our technology is that it is very modular and we can integrate with all manner of technology. We can integrate with different kinds of back office systems with different independent and third party information. Currently, you know, one of our value propositions, by the way, is that you only enter your data once. So of all of the times that you're going to need to enter your name and your address and your phone number you know, if you've created an account, then you have the option to really reuse that data at any point to reduce the manual data entry and therefore reduce the number of mistakes. And in addition to that, like I mentioned, we can integrate with other tools. And right now, for example, we're integrating with Calendly for, you know, we have a notary function that's coming online very soon. And so to be able to schedule time with the notary that can do that, we integrate with different payment systems like Stripe. And so even in the Signature, we can integrate with external platforms or use our own internal platform. So we are not yet integrated with Precision Ag platforms or any of these new exciting tools that are coming up online. But we have designed and architected the app to be able to do so in the near future and we would love to do so.
- [17:38]
A
Great. I mean, I've heard so many stories about inconsistent data sources from the farm level data to satellite imagery, to USDA reports and private data sets. You know, they just don't always align. So I think that's very forward thinking to have that integration to be available. And that's really cool. So I would say as we wrap today, right, we really appreciate the work you're doing here. For producers, these applications aren't just paperwork. They directly impact cash flow coverage and the ability to keep operations moving. You know what stood out to me in this conversation? How clearly you built this around real pain points for farmers and that you have it ready to address some of the future challenges that they might be dealing with on a day to day basis. So for our audience in ag insurance, underwriters, agents, risk managers, tools like this can really reduce friction, improve data quality, save time, and ultimately lead to better outcomes for everyone involved. So thank you so much for walking us through Z Form and the thinking behind it to our audience. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we hope to see you at Ermia Agricon August 31st through September 2nd, where you're guaranteed to get up to the minute info on what's going on in the farming world. And I want to thank thank our guest Lara and Laura for joining us today and sharing all this great information on this new tool.
- [19:12]
B
Thanks so much, Joel. It's been a pleasure.
- [19:14]
C
Yes, thanks so much for having us. We hope that your audience will check us out and we're really looking forward to reducing paperwork at every point of the farmer's paperwork journey, which is long and burdensome.
- [19:27]
A
Awesome. We hope that our audience will share this with a farmer who needs this information and to our audience. Thanks for listening.