by Lynda Kiernan

Bayer has announced the commercial launch of its digital farming platform, Climate FieldView, in Argentina in time for the impending growing season. 

Originally developed and delivered by The Climate Corporation, and first launched in the U.S. in 2015, the FieldView platform is the most complete digital farming tool on the market. Giving farmers a deeper understanding of their fields, FieldView collects and stores data, analyzes crop health and performance, and helps farmers optimize their management decisions and inputs for greater return on investment. 

Founded in 2006, The Climate Corporation has changed hands through a string of high-profile deals in recent years. In 2013, Monsanto expanded its reach into technology and analytics, and announced its acquisition of the Climate Corporation for $930 million. 

Five years later, and after cleaning extensive antitrust hurdles, Bayer went on to complete its acquisition of Monsanto (and with it, The Climate Corporation), in June 2018 for $63 billion.

“We are pleased to announce the combination of our two great organizations,” said Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG in 2016, when the deal for Monsanto was initially announced. “This represents a major step forward for our Crop Science business and reinforces Bayer’s leadership position as a global innovation driven Life Science company….”

Today, FieldView is currently being used on more than 60 million paid acres across the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and across Europe. And within this year, the platform is on pace to reach 90 million paid acres, as it sets its sights on expanding into more global regions in the near future.

“Digital technologies are helping more farmers around the world gain a deeper understanding of their fields through easy-to-use tools that are enhancing their operations,” said Mike Stern, CEO of The Climate Corporation and head of Digital Farming at Bayer. 

“Accessing data in real time provides personalized field insights to make critical management decisions and enables more precise field management, helping preserve natural resources and crop inputs. Ultimately, these tools will help contribute to Bayer’s commitments to reduce environmental impact by delivering breakthrough, innovative solutions for more efficient crop production.”  

FieldView has already made inroads in Argentina, helping farmers in the country make informed decisions. Over the past two years, the data tool has been tested by more than 200 farmers in various regions across the country on more than 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres) of corn, soybeans, wheat, and sunflowers.

The platform is compatible with the three leading equipment companies in the country, and will integrate data on planting, spraying, monitoring, harvesting, and soil in a single digital ag platform. This data will be accessible from a mobile phone, tablet, or computer, and farmers will be able to generate field maps, planting and harvesting reports, and will have access to satellite imagery tools to identify issues before yields are affected. 

“The FieldView launch is a significant advancement for Argentine agriculture, providing farmers easy access to the data they need right in the field to help them make important operating decisions with increased confidence,” said Matias Corradi, Climate Business Lead in Argentina for The Climate Corporation. 

“Farmer evaluations of FieldView have been extremely positive in Argentina. With field maps and real-time reports, farmers feel they were able to solve problems more efficiently, implement more tests of different seed varieties and densities, and able to easily and quickly analyze the results.”

 

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to GAI News. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.