Focusing on “connectivity” between machines, operators and fields

John Deere reinforces its claim on innovative leadership for providing solutions in the space of information enabled agriculture. Seamless “connectivity” between machines, operators and fields were at the heart of a press event in Pamhagen, Austria, where the company unveiled a range of new information solutions for contractors and arable farmers as part of John Deere FarmSight.

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Agricultural production needs to become more efficient in order to serve the growing demand for food while also being able to achieve appropriate margins in crop production, especially in times of decreasing crop and increasing input prices. Utilization of real-time machine and field data and providing a seamless connection between office and operators opens up significant opportunities in three key areas: improved machine uptime, higher equipment performance and reduced cost of operation all together improve production margins. Therefore, John Deere continues to heavily invest into research & development with a crystal clear focus on information solutions for European contractors and arable farmers.

“With John Deere FarmSight, we are making information enabled agriculture a reality and this remains a core element of our strategy to address the future needs of farmers and contractors”, says Chris Wigger, John Deere Region 2 Vice President, Sales & Marketing. As reported by a John Deere dealer the vast majority of John Deere dealers across Europe have made significant investments to continuously develop professional FarmSight dealer services. They are getting well prepared to support their customers as these require support for integrated solutions around information enabled agriculture.

“Our customers are managing more widely distributed fields, larger equipment fleets, more and frequently changing operators and on top, they must comply with a growing number of regulatory requirements. Our three new solution packages enable customers to connect to their machines, their operators and to their fields in a fully integrated, innovative manner.” Chris Wigger added.

John Deere FarmSight solutions are designed to meet the following vital pre-requisites:

1. All-makes connectivity system openness

2. Seamless integration of solutions throughout the entire value chain

3. Comprehensive data privacy & security

“We remain fully committed to the policy of system openness for the integration of data captured on machines and with systems from other manufacturers. If anyone still believes that John Deere is ‘not open’, feel free to show us any competitor who provides a higher level of openness and supports industry standards to a stronger extend,” said Chris Wigger.

Farmers and contractors have many partners supporting them in running a successful business. Not only implement manufacturers, but also agricultural input suppliers, software providers and agricultural service providers (consultants, etc.), are vital supporting resources helping them managing a sustainable and competitive business. By taking an ‘open system’ approach, virtually anybody can become a John Deere partner implementing a data communication interface to the Operations Center in the MyJohnDeere.com web portal, as long as common standards and integrity levels are met.

“Our customers can expect added value from user friendly solutions and the benefits of collaborative investments to increase yields and reduce input costs, including seamless data management that gives the customer full control of what goes where,” Chris Wigger concluded.

Comprehensive data privacy & security are key prerequisites to make information enabled agriculture successful. As a trusted brand, John Deere fully respects the European data privacy directive and local data privacy laws, and uses personalized customer data only for the delivery of the contracted service to the customer. The company has recently started the process of establishing a physical data storage location in Europe. “Rest assured, we will not allow ourselves to compromise data security and privacy,” Chris Wigger added.