Deere Digs Deep into Data with Acquisitions

The company entered an agreement with The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto Company, to acquire the Precision Planting LLC equipment business, and it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Association member Monosem.

Deere announced the Monosem deal first. The member company is described in the announcement as the European market leader in precision planters. The purchase includes the company’s four facilities in France and two in the United States.

“Through this action, we continue to build on our leadership position in precision agriculture,” said John May, president, agricultural solutions and chief information officer at 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.”

May said the Monosem will retain its own brand and trademark and will leverage its own operational strengths. Monosem, based in Edwardsville, Kan., has been a family-owned enterprise since it was founded in 1948 and an Association member since 1980.

The deal with The Climate Corporation represents the industry's first and only near real-time, in-cab wireless connection to Deere equipment by a third party. It will enable exclusive data connectivity between certain Deere 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."

May said the agreements allow Deere to extend the range of retrofit options available from Precision Planting to many more products and into new geographies.

"John Deere strengthens its position as the most open platform in the industry both in our equipment and the cloud-based data management solution known as the John Deere Operations Center," May said.

Early word is that Deere will maintain the existing network of Precision Planting dealers, which is good news for those independent retailers. But, there is skepticism as to how long that relationship will last. One dealer suggested in a blog post that in three years, he’d be surprised if there were any independent Precision Planting dealers.

“My fear is the cultures aren’t going to get along and they will dissolve it,” the dealer wrote. “But I certainly hope that isn’t the case.”

In October, Deere also announced a partnership with the Colorado-based DN2K, which stands for Data Into Knowledge. The companies have together formed SageInsights, with Deere owning a majority stake, aiming to optimize use of the data farmers gather through their equipment. S