URBANA, Ill. — A West Coast agriculture and analytics company committed to assisting industry leaders build stronger and smarter farms opened its doors for the first time last week in the Midwest.

The timing was right, according to Bill Brozak, who is involved in public relations for the two-year-old Granular company of San Francisco.

“This is the time of year for farmers to be evaluating the tools they have to prepare for planting next year,” he noted in an interview on Nov. 16.

Many people attended the early November grand opening of Granular’s new regional office – a first for the company – in the University of Illinois Research Park. A news release accompanying the event pointed out the office is designed to strengthen recruiting and research ties with the university’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES).

“The Midwest office will help Granular to better serve its customers,” Brozak said. “It’s more of an optional than formal program – a software program – and they’ll (likely) be working more closely with the folks at the university.”

The program itself shows farmers how to use the software to troubleshoot. “It’s a type of learning, adjusting to the ever-changing mechanics of farming and using software technology to adjust to these opportunities,” he said, noting the program would go over with the public “in a positive way.”

“It’s a place in the Midwest where growers can come in to learn. One scenario of the program is a one-to-one basis where a customer can make an appointment to meet with a company representative, and be given a demonstration of the produce,” Brozak explained.

With cloud, mobile and advanced data science technology, Granular stated its platform makes it easier to manage a large farm and use data for critical business decisions. Granular’s rapidly growing network of farms in the United States and Canada is finding new ways to profit from aggregated data, expertise and market power, the company added.

Granular is currently recruiting for a number of roles in different functions to help serve its growing customer base. For more information on Granular, including career opportunities, visit https://www.granular.ag