Deere & Co. to acquire Precision Planting equipment business

Deere & Co. and The Climate Corp. have reached an agreement for Deere to acquire a subsidiary of Monsanto Co., the Precision Planting LLC equipment business.

The agreement also means John Deere farm equipment and the Climate FieldView platform will be able to exchange real-time data on certain Deere farm equipment. Deere will purchase Precision Planting, but Climate Corp. will keep the portfolio integrated into the Climate FieldView platform.

“To maximize the value of digital agriculture, farmers need solutions for simple and seamless collection of in-field agronomic data,” Mike Stern, president and chief operating officer for The Climate Corp., said. “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.”

Customers can now share their current and historical agronomic data with John Deere and the FieldView platform without any interruption or delay. 

"The agreements we are announcing allow John Deere to extend the range of retrofit options available from Precision Planting to many more products and into new geographies," John May, president of agricultural solutions and chief information officer at Deere & Co., said. "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.”

This connectivity allows farmers to collect and directly share data to the Climate cloud, enables data visualization in the cab and supports the development of customized data science-driven insights.

“Our agreements enable farmers to combine the industry-leading technology of John Deere equipment with Climate FieldView, the platform that offers farmers the broadest equipment connectivity in the industry backed by data science," Stern said. 

May believes the strategic acquisition will expand the John Deere precision agriculture business and accelerates its momentum as a market leader. 

“Strategic use of information is an important factor in successful agriculture," he said. "Today’s actions demonstrate John Deere’s ongoing investments to enhance the product and service solutions we offer our customers.”