John Deere continues to focus on precision agriculture, as the company announced on Nov. 3 that it reached an agreement with The Climate Corporation to acquire the Precision Planting LLC equipment business and to enable exclusive near real-time data connectivity between certain John Deere farm equipment and the Climate FieldView platform.
"To maximize the value of digital agriculture, farmers need solutions for simple and seamless collection of in-field agronomic data," said Mike Stern, president and chief operating officer for The Climate Corporation. "As a result of these milestone agreements, farmers will experience the fastest, most frequent and highest resolution third-party connectivity between John Deere's equipment and the Climate FieldView platform."
Per the terms of this agreement, Deere will purchase Precision Planting while Climate will retain the digital agriculture portfolio that has been integrated into the Climate FieldViewTM platform. The acquisition is subject to closing conditions, including the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities to the extent required.
This news comes after an announcement from John Deere on Nov. 2, stating that the company had acquired Monosem, a precision planter producer in the European and U.S. markets. John Deere will work with Monosem’s existing engineers to further develop its precision planting technology.
"Through this action, we continue to build on our leadership position in precision agriculture," said John May, president of agricultural solutions and chief information officer at John Deere. "Monosem is admired for its innovation and success in precision planter technology that helps farmers increase production. Acquiring this market leader positions John Deere to serve more customers worldwide."
Under the terms of the agreement, Monosem will maintain its name and trademarks. The Climate Corporation deal is still subject to closing conditions, including approval from antitrust authorities.
Each of these announcements showcase Deere’s continued commitment to the precision agriculture market.