Big data is quickly being seen as the next big investment in agribusiness. In early November Monsanto purchased The Climate Corp. which processes 52.43 million megabytes of weather information daily including eight years of soil, moisture and precipitation records for each of the 29 million farm fields in the U.S. Using this data the company uses an algorithm that divides the country into approximately half a million plots and then generates 10,000 daily weather scenarios for each of them. This information is used to create custom insurance policies for corn, soybeans and wheat farmers. Then when data shows adverse weather conditions causing loss of crops an insured farmer receives a check – no claims, forms, or negotiating. The Climate Corp. charges approximately $40 per acre to insure crops and Monsanto expects the company will yield $20 million in the coming years. In July, Informa Economics floated an investment prospectus to underwrite a broad study of what it termed ‘aginfomatics’. Companies such as John Deere, Dow, Pioneer, Syngenta and Monsanto are all listed as interested in ‘data collection, analysis, and operational planning.’
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