AgroPages-BASF and John Deere to develop precision farming tools-Agricultural news

Further developing their partnership, BASF and John Deere have signed an agreement which covers the joint development of integrated precision farming solutions aiming to significantly enhance arable farming productivity. Developed in close collaboration with growers, these IT enabled solutions will combine BASF’s agronomic and crop protection expertise with John Deere’s application and farm data management know-how to provide customers with enhanced agronomic decision support.

Initial projects covered by this agreement will predominantly address markets in Europe and Latin America to include cereals, sugarcane, oilseed rape and corn growers. First integrated tools are expected to become available during 2015. With regard to system and data security, these applications will meet the highest possible standards of the agricultural industry and will be compatible with the field proven data exchange standards AgGateway and AEF/ISOBUS.

"As we include customer experience and expertise from around the globe and from different crop production systems into the development of our new solutions, growers should expect high-quality and targeted benefits throughout the entire production cycle from seeding to harvesting" says Hans-Jürgen Lutz, Vice President Business Development of BASF’s Crop Protection division.

"Our jointly developed crop management portals will be open to other partners as well, so we can spearhead the development of state-of-the-art crop management solutions", says John Deere Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Christoph Wigger. "Instead of just combining existing tools, we will focus on developing innovative and fully integrated solutions that intuitively address grower’s needs".

While BASF will be offering a new service for field scouting and agronomic decision support, John Deere will contribute a range of new crop protection solutions via its collaborative farm management portal. Jointly developed tools will provide access to portals of either company.

This agreement is non-exclusive and allows both, BASF and John Deere to partner with third parties as customer requirements deem appropriate.