Keeping Gin and Co-op Office Systems Running Through Harvest

When harvest starts on the South Plains, a gin or co-op office can go from quiet to nonstop almost overnight. Trailers line up at the scale, producers call about tickets and settlements, and the office has to keep weights, records and payments moving without a hitch. If a computer, printer or internet connection fails in the middle of that, the whole yard can feel it.

This guide is for gins, grain elevators, and farm supply co-ops around Lubbock, Levelland, Brownfield, Lamesa, Littlefield, Post and the rest of West Texas. It covers what tends to break during harvest, why attackers pay attention to the season, and what to do before the busy weeks hit.

Why harvest is a different kind of IT problem

Most offices can live with a slow computer for a day. A gin or elevator during harvest can't. A few things make the season harder:

• Everything depends on a handful of machines. The scale house PC, the ticket printer, the office server and the internet connection often carry the whole operation. When one of them fails, people fall back to paper and the line backs up.

• Seasonal staff need access fast. Temporary help needs logins, email or shared computers quickly, and those accounts are easy to forget about once the season ends.

• The buildings are hard on equipment. Lint, dust, heat, and power blips from storms or heavy equipment wear out computers, switches and network cables faster than in a typical office.

• Long distances. Remote scale houses, satellite yards and buying stations are often connected by wireless links or separate internet lines that nobody checks until they stop working.

Attackers know harvest is a deadline

This isn't just a theory. In April 2022 the FBI warned that ransomware actors may be more likely to attack agricultural cooperatives during critical planting and harvest seasons. The FBI noted ransomware attacks on six grain cooperatives during the fall 2021 harvest, and said attackers may see co-ops as willing to pay because their work is so time-sensitive. The same notice lists how attackers got in: known but unpatched vulnerabilities, shared network resources, and compromised managed services. Some victims had to slow down and process by hand, while others lost their websites and email.

Agriculture is also one of the sectors CISA treats as critical infrastructure, and a busy gin or elevator is part of that supply chain. So the goal is simple: make sure that if something does go wrong in October or November, it's a bad afternoon instead of a lost season.

A pre-harvest IT checklist for gins and co-ops

Ideally, work through this list a few weeks before the first modules or loads arrive.

1. Check the scale house and ticket workflow end to end

Walk through a full ticket the way it happens on a busy day: weigh in, weigh out, print the ticket and record it in the office system. Confirm the scale computer, indicator connection, printers and any label or receipt printers all work. Keep spare ink, ribbons, paper and at least one spare keyboard and mouse on hand. If the scale PC is getting old, replace it before harvest, not during it.

2. Patch and update before the rush

The FBI notice pointed to known but unpatched vulnerabilities as a common way in. Install Windows, firewall and software updates now, while you still have time to fix anything an update breaks. Then plan to hold off on major upgrades until the season slows down.

3. Make sure backups are offline and actually tested

CISA's ransomware guide recommends that you maintain offline, encrypted backups of critical data and regularly test them, because ransomware often tries to find and delete or encrypt any backup it can reach. For a gin or co-op, that means ticket data, producer and patron records, accounting files and settlement records. Do a real test restore before harvest so you know how long it takes and that the files open. Our backup and disaster recovery page explains how we set this up.

4. Lock down remote access and email

Turn on multi-factor authentication for email, remote access and any banking or settlement systems. CISA calls MFA a simple step that can block many common cyberattacks and significantly reduce the risk of account compromise. Remove old remote access tools that nobody uses anymore, and make sure any vendor that connects to your scale or accounting system does it through an approved, logged method. Harvest is also a busy time for fake invoices and payment-change emails, so require a phone call to a known number before changing anyone's bank details.

5. Plan for the internet going down

If your office depends on the internet for email, cloud accounting, or sending data to buyers and warehouses, a single connection is a single point of failure. A second line, such as cellular, fixed wireless or a low-earth-orbit satellite service, paired with a firewall that switches over automatically, can keep the office working. We covered the options in more detail in our guide to business internet in the South Plains.

6. Protect against power problems

Put the scale house PC, the office server, the firewall and the main network switch on battery backups (UPS units), and test those batteries before the season. Short power blips are a common cause of corrupted files and network gear that won't come back up on its own.

7. Clean and check the hardware

Blow out the dust and lint from computers and network closets, check that fans are running, and look for damaged cables, especially at remote scales and outbuildings. A switch sitting in a hot, dusty room is a common reason a remote scale drops offline.

8. Set up seasonal staff the right way

Give seasonal workers their own logins instead of a shared password, and give them access to only what they need. Write down every account you create so you can turn them all off when harvest ends.

9. Know who to call

Write down who handles what: the scale vendor, the gin or grain software vendor, your internet provider and your IT support. Put the list somewhere everyone in the office can find it, including on paper, so it's still there if a computer is down.

After the season: a short wrap-up

Once the last loads are in, take an hour to review. Disable seasonal accounts, note which machines gave you trouble, and make a list of what to replace or upgrade over the winter. That makes next year's checklist much shorter.

How Double Technologies helps ag businesses

Double Technologies provides managed IT services and network monitoring and firewall management for businesses across Lubbock and West Texas, including the smaller towns of the South Plains. We have 30 years of combined experience, and we can come to you, whether that's the main office or a scale house out in the county. We can help with patching, offline backups, firewalls with automatic internet failover, MFA, SIEM log monitoring and IDS/IPS, all set up around how your operation actually runs at harvest.

Get ready before the trailers roll in

Call Double Technologies at (806) 319-8521 or contact us to schedule an IT assessment for your gin, elevator or co-op. Our hours are Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 7 PM, and Saturday, 9 AM to 5 PM Central.