TELUS Agriculture is migrating Gatekeeper users to its new platform, TELUS Crop Management. The simplest farms moved in 2025. Complex businesses are migrating through mid-2026. You may have used Gatekeeper for years. The forced move may be the wrong time for you, or the wrong platform. This article covers the alternatives open to UK farms now.
The Gatekeeper migration is not optional. TELUS has stated that its investment and development focus has shifted to TELUS Crop Management. Gatekeeper has no formal end date. The plan is still clear. No new features, support for faults only, and an expectation that users will move.
The concerns farmers raise tend to fall into three categories:
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The strongest like-for-like alternative for arable farms. Omnia began as a precision farming tool, and it is now a full farm system. It covers satellite imagery, variable rate planning, soil analysis and field-level crop records. It is map-based, data-driven, and built by the UK's largest independent agrochemical distributor.
The trade-off: Omnia is typically available as part of a Hutchinsons agronomy relationship rather than as a standalone software purchase. If you already work with Hutchinsons, this is a natural move. If you do not, the software comes with a broader commercial relationship.
Best for: Arable farms wanting comprehensive crop recording and precision agriculture in one platform, particularly those already working with Hutchinsons.
The newest serious entrant in the UK market. xFarm partnered with Dyson Farming in late 2024 and is targeting 700,000 hectares of UK coverage within three years. The app is clean, mobile-first, and designed for simplicity: field recording, crop planning, input tracking, and basic compliance logs.
xFarm offers a free tier for basic field recording, making it low-risk to trial. The question for Gatekeeper migrants is whether xFarm's UK-specific compliance features (SFI evidence capture, Red Tractor audit trails, BCMS/LIS integration) are mature enough. The platform originates from European regulatory frameworks, and the UK compliance layer is still developing.
Best for: Smaller arable farms wanting a modern, simple interface. Early adopters comfortable with a platform still building its UK feature set. The free tier makes it easy to test before committing.
A different proposition entirely. Soil Benchmark focuses on soil health data, carbon accounting, and environmental scheme record-keeping. It does not replace the full crop recording in Gatekeeper. Some farms now need SFI evidence and sustainability figures more than spray logs. For them it fills a gap that Gatekeeper never covered.
Best for: Farms entering SFI agreements that need soil testing evidence, carbon baselines, and environmental outcome tracking. Use alongside another system for operational crop recording.
If your Gatekeeper use was primarily for compliance on a mixed farm with livestock, Herdwatch is the strongest dedicated livestock platform. Over 18,000 UK farms use it. It has a confirmed connection to the Livestock Information Service for the summer 2026 cattle start. It also handles ScotEID. It starts at about £119 a year, and it has a free tier.
Herdwatch does not handle arable crop recording. For mixed farms, it replaces the livestock half of what Gatekeeper did, and you would need a separate system for crops.
Best for: Beef, suckler, sheep, and dairy farms that were using Gatekeeper primarily for livestock compliance. Full livestock software comparison.
A UK-based farm accounting and management software provider with a long heritage. SUM-IT is strongest on the financial management side: farm accounts, budgeting, cashflow, VAT, and management reporting. Some farms used Gatekeeper beside Farmplan for accounts. SUM-IT can replace the accounts part. It is an independent UK provider, outside TELUS.
Best for: Farms that want accounts software from an independent UK provider. It suits farms that want to depend less on TELUS across all their software.
A long-established UK arable farm management system with a loyal user base. Focused on field records, spray applications, and crop planning. Less feature-rich than Gatekeeper at its peak, but stable, familiar to UK arable farmers, and independent of the TELUS ecosystem.
Best for: Arable farms that want a proven, independent UK platform for field records without the complexity or vendor risk of the TELUS migration.
| Platform | Type | Pricing | LIS Integration | SFI Evidence | Key Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hutchinsons Omnia | Arable / precision | Bundled with agronomy | N/A (crop-focused) | Partial | Requires Hutchinsons relationship |
| xFarm | Arable / mixed | Free tier + paid plans | Not confirmed | Developing | UK compliance features still maturing |
| Soil Benchmark | Environmental / soil | Varies | N/A | Strong | Not a full crop management system |
| Herdwatch | Livestock | From ~£119/year | Confirmed | N/A | No crop recording |
| SUM-IT | Accounts / management | Varies | N/A | N/A | Financial management, not field records |
| Landmark Geofolia | Arable | Varies | N/A | Partial | Less feature-rich than Gatekeeper |
| Bespoke (ESRE) | All-in-one | £15,000-£30,000 one-off | Can integrate directly | Built to spec | Requires development time |
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There is a case for following the TELUS migration path. TELUS Crop Management may keep its promise. You would then get a modern platform, your old data moved across, UK support, and a well-funded parent company behind it. The risk is in the transition itself and in the long-term pricing power a near-monopoly vendor holds.
There is also a case for treating the forced migration as a natural breakpoint. You may have meant to review your farm software for years, and stayed on Gatekeeper out of habit. The move is the moment to look at everything, instead of taking the default route.
Read the migration note again. The business structure and ten years of records transfer. Spray records, compliance logs and your own workflows may not.
The reason is not carelessness. The meaning of each field lives in the old supplier's code. An export therefore carries values, and the rules that made those values mean something stay behind.
That is why a move costs so much, and why the next move will cost the same again.
We build farm systems on engage.re. Your meaning is held as data, so an export carries the definitions with the records. All data also sits in five database tables that never change, so a new requirement adds a dictionary entry and never forces a migration.
Ask any supplier in this article for a real export with the field definitions attached. We list the other six questions in vendor lock-in, what can you prove. We work through the money in what does it cost to own and run your own systems.
For some farms Gatekeeper was always a compromise. It held too much they did not need, and too little of what they did. The move is a chance to build something that fits. A bespoke system built around your holding connects directly to LIS. It records SFI evidence in the exact form DEFRA inspectors expect. It handles whatever mix of businesses your farm runs.
The cost is a one-off capital investment of £15,000-£30,000, with no recurring subscription fees. Take a farm that spends £1,000 to £2,000 a year across several subscriptions. It usually recovers a build cost in three to four years. After that the subscription cost is nothing. You own the code, you own the data, and when DEFRA changes the rules again, you update your own system on your own timeline.
If you want to see what the bespoke route actually looks like, ESRE's live farm demo opens without a login. Sign in as the owner and open the livestock register, or as the vet and check the medicine records. It is a working system, not a screenshot.