Bayer and Microsoft are partnering to build cloud-based digital tools and data science solutions for agriculture. This aims to be something used across the food value chain with three goals:
- Accelerate innovation
- Boost efficiency
- Support sustainability
Unlike Climate FieldView, this won’t be farmer-facing, but rather this new toolbox will be available for other companies (startups and established incumbents) as “off-the-shelf” solutions. However, this does introduce the cloud solution and infrastructure and operating platform for Climate FieldView going forward, and Bayer says it will not have any noticeable effect on the FIeldView user experience.
“With this partnership, Climate FieldView remains central to our strategy. We need to continue to focus on product feature innovation and enhancements, and maintain the momentum behind our customer-facing, industry leading digital tool,” Bayer provided in a statement to AgWeb.
New solutions from this partnership could include:
- farming operations
- sustainable sourcing
- manufacturing and supply chain improvement
- ESG monitoring and measurement
“Microsoft will build upon Bayer’s pioneering work in digital farming and data science to support the Microsoft cloud platform and deliver offer industry-leading access to information that will advance and set the industry standard for digital ag platforms going forward,” the statement continued. “In this way, this partnership will leverage Microsoft’s expertise to maintain core FieldView functionality while Bayer applies in-house innovation toward new, unique value for farmers and dealer customers.”
Why This Partnership and Why Now?
“This partnership comes at a unique point in time where increased innovation is sorely needed across the food and fiber value chain,” Liam Condon, member of the board of management of Bayer and president of Bayer Crop Science said in the company announcement. “We need collaboration, shared vision and action.”
Bayer Crop Science has stated the goal of having 100% digital enabled sales for its division by 2030. In its statement to AgWeb, Bayer clarified this partnership does not include development of a direct-to-farmer ordering system and will be a business-to-business offering.
“Like every industry, farming and the food sector are undergoing rapid digital transformation, from autonomous tractors, to AI-based digital advisories, and scalable precision agriculture,” said Ravi Krishnaswamy, Corporate Vice President, Azure Global Industry at Microsoft. “We’re excited to partner with Bayer to accelerate this transformation and unlock even greater agricultural innovation by bringing together data-driven insights with Bayer’s agronomic expertise and the power of Microsoft Azure.”
Bayer also provided in a statement to AgWeb that this partnership continues its data privacy policies and its commitment to steward customer data.
