First came the smartphone, then came the smart home, and now… the smart farm? It’s no secret that the Internet of Things (IoT) is taking over industries worldwide, but the most recent influx of smart technologies is coming in one of the most unexpected – but potentially most necessary – of places: agricultural equipment.
According to Farm Equipment’s Manufacturer News, AGCO Corp., a world-leading manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment solutions, just announced a development partnership with agricultural technology company AgIntegrated (AGI) to deliver agricultural information management systems services to AGCO customers. Together, this dynamic duo is promising AGCO farmers the ability to connect more easily with their agronomy service providers, create seamless data connectivity, and, ultimately, digitize the farm.
Recent McKinsey research shows that while the agriculture sector is a bit laggard in the digitization field – due to roadblocks such as long experimentation cycles, connectivity issues in rural areas and complex systems affected by weather, like genetics, nutrition, soil composition, etc. – the conditions are just right for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to accelerate their customers’ ability to capture productivity gains in the field. According to the research, farmers primarily care about heightened job effectiveness – like correct seed depth and higher harvesting yield – driven particularly by their financial incentive.
All of these factors place OEMs at the top of the list of vendors for farmers to trust to provide these new technologies – and this new AGCO partnership is a prime example of that trustworthy team effort. AGI is an industry vet, having spent 15 years empowering technology use on a daily basis to advance precision agriculture adoption, which, in turn, increases those aforementioned harvest yields.
With a North American launch later this year, the new services will complement the fleet and operational services already available through AGCO’s existing Fuse Connected Services. Together, AGI and AGCO plan to deploy Advanced Programming Interface (API) connections, providing farmers with more options in the data transfer process. And, rather than confusing the communication paths between technologies, AgIntegrated’s Onsite QC Pro data hub will provide a neutral platform to streamline agronomic data transfer, ultimately leading to easier data flow and better decision-making for farmers.
According to McKinsey, American agriculture OEMs can generate value from theses kinds of new technologies that is 4-6 times the current profits of OEMs. That’s why enabling farmers to adopt these technologies is the best way for OEMs to create this open approach to the smart farm and precision agriculture, ultimately increasing financial performance across the board.