NFarms Partnership Update
NFarms is developing partnerships with local growers, producers, industry leaders, and organizations. The partnerships will help facilitate the rapid deployment of cutting-edge advancements by combining resources, expertise, and practical insight. This collaboration will play an important role in advancing technology in agricultural operations.
Real Time Data and Insights
Providing a Data Hub for Integrated Precision Ag
RealmFive CEO and Co-Founder, Steve Tippery has a good grasp on not only Nebraska agriculture, but the challenges farmers face when implementing precision agriculture into their operations. He grew up on a farm in Nebraska and spent 20 years working in industry before co-founding RealmFive in 2015. Tippery says, "My background combines agricultural practical agricultural, engineering technology, and business leadership, which drives my passion for developing solutions that bring practical innovation to agribusiness. My focus today is on leading our team in advancing connected agriculture, building strategic partnerships, and ensuring our technologies deliver measurable value across the agricultural ecosystem."
Headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, RealmFive is a leading agricultural technology company delivering connectivity, data solutions, and hyper-automation to agribusinesses. Its SMARTSITES platform integrates advanced sensors, hardware, and cloud-based analytics to provide real-time insights and enable lights-out operation across multi-site enterprises. With innovations such as SMARTSITES, FlowGrade automated grain grading and automated probing, RealmFive empowers commercial farms, cooperatives, ag retailers, and processors to operate more efficiently, sustainably, and profitably.
ENREEC Insights
How is ENREEC integrating RealmFive technologies?
ENREEC has been utilizing Realm 5 technologies for the past 3 years. There are 3 weather stations spread across the facility to capture the variability of weather, such as accounting for rainfall, and lagoon level sensors in all 3 of the feedlot lagoons. ENREEC's farm and feedlot managers use this information to monitor when lagoons need to be pumped. This also provides a continuous dataset for record keeping for research.
“Right now, the data is just being stored in the cloud, but we hope to build out a platform that makes the data accessible for any researchers wanting weather records at ENREEC,” said Tyler Smith, “If anyone needs access to the data now, I can grant them access to the Realm5 platform or retrieve the data they are looking for and send it to them.”
Operation Efficiency
As far as the lagoon monitors, we can now see in real-time, from anywhere, the status of all of the lagoons. This eliminating the need for someone to drive around and check them to see if they need pumped. Also, due to the regulatory restrictions around the records we need to keep this provides a complete record that backs up any manual measurements taken.
Once the weather data platform is built out, it will make weather data acquisition seamless for any researchers working at ENREEC. UNL Researchers and grad students will easily be able to access this data without having to work through a farm manager.
RealmFive CEO and Co-Founder Steve Tippery talks with Adam Leise who direction the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network during the NFarm Building ribbon cutting at ENREEC in August 2025.
From RealmFive Co-Founder and CEO, Steve Tippery
NFarms Partner Perspectives...
How did the partnership working with NFarms develop?
- RealmFive’s partnership with NFarms began through shared interests in advancing digital agriculture and applied research in Nebraska. The NFarms initiative aligns closely with RealmFive’s mission to connect agricultural systems and demonstrate the value of automation and data-driven management in real-world conditions. Working with the University of Nebraska and ENREEC provides a strong collaborative environment for testing, validation, and demonstration of emerging technologies.
Tell us about how you are or will be working with NFarms.
- RealmFive is providing IoT connectivity infrastructure and sensor solutions that support NFarms’ precision agriculture and automation initiatives. This includes enabling wireless data collection from distributed field and facility sensors, automating data transfer to cloud platforms, and collaborating with UNL researchers to validate and demonstrate these solutions. Together, we are showcasing how reliable, scalable connectivity and innovative technologies can solve problems in agriculture for many types of stakeholders.
How do you see your company or organization contributing to progress and innovation in agriculture?
- I have long hoped for an opportunity to work more closely with the professors and faculty at the University of Nebraska, but there has not previously been a strong venue for that type of interaction. The NFarms initiative might provides such a platform, with the hope of enabling meaningful collaboration between applied research and industry innovation. By combining the University’s research capabilities with RealmFive’s commercial technology platform, we could help agribusinesses to visualize and adopt technologies that enhance operational efficiency, sustainability, and profitability. Collaborations like this could demonstrate how public-private partnerships can accelerate innovation and deliver lasting impact to agribusinesses across the region.
Steve Tippery is CEO and Co-Founder of NFarm's featured partner RealmFive® an innovative ag tech company, based in Lincoln, NE. RealmFive®focuses its technologies in (5) market verticals: Agronomy, Irrigation, Livestock, Operations, and Inventory. RealmFive® is a global agricultural and industrial technology manufacturer and service provider, empowering large-scale farms, agribusinesses, and commercial enterprises to deliver operational excellence and drive profitability through smarter workflows, resource management, and labor optimization. Through increased data visibility, business intelligence, digital supply chain, and data-driven automation, RealmFive helps organizations manage their entire realm with confidence. This focus resulted in SMARTSITES—an innovative framework of devices, software, networking, and services converging into a seamless, cross-functional platform that grows with their business goals.