MyJohnDeere.com | Information on field conditions, agronomy and machinery telematics is gathered to tell situation on farm
DES MOINES, Iowa — Dave Everitt is excited.
After 37 years of developing and marketing the world’s best known machinery, he has seen some big changes in agriculture.
However, he said the technology that farmers are getting today is revolutionary.
Everitt, president of John Deere’s agriculture and turf division, said strong agricultural commodity prices are supporting technology development and adoption in farm equipment, but the costs of development and turn-around times for new technologies are falling precipitously at the same time.
“The industry is changing faster than ever before. We are able to deliver new tools that will make farmers more productive than they have ever been,” he said during a meeting with securities analysts and agricultural media in Des Moines, Iowa.
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“But wider drills and more horsepower in the tractors are reaching some natural limits.… We have a 120 foot planter, but it’s pretty hard to transport in most areas.”
The machinery engineer turned executive announced at the end of June what he says is a bigger innovation than a new combine.
“Farmsight is a strategy, not a product,” Everitt said about Deere’s latest release, MyJohnDeere.com, the method that farmers will use to interact with the company’s Farmsight machinery and farm operations data platform.
Farmsight is a whole enterprise approach to agricultural operations, using a combination of weather and field conditions, agronomy and financial information and remote machinery telematics that records and delivers machinery operational data both to and from equipment.
Jerry Roell of Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group heads up 500 Deere staff who use software and hardware engineering strategies called agile development. The system reviews its processes and product development targets every two months.
Roell said Farmsight is based on three pillars: logistics, machine optimization and agronomy decision support.
That relationship is provided wirelessly between machines, the farmer and the machinery dealership.
Farm data is stored on secure remote computer servers, called the cloud.
Farmers can use that data anytime, either from the farm’s office or a tractor cab using a smart phone, portable computer or tablet.
“The tools farmers consider indispensable in (North American) agriculture five years from now don’t even exist today,” he said.
MyJohnDeere.com relies on John Deere dealers and farmers working together to take advantage of ad-vanced automated record keeping, with farmer controlled security features that keep the data private.
Everitt said Enns Brothers John Deere in southern Manitoba is a good example of what the technology change will look like for producers.
The dealer has staff agronomists who help customers write field prescriptions and deal with machinery application strategies and soil sampling.
He said the machinery dealer can be a trusted source when it comes to selling these services because the advice it provides isn’t related to selling seed, fertilizer or chemicals.
“Their goal is to make the farmer money over the long haul and keep them as customers for the machinery and services the dealership provides,” he said.
“The machinery becomes a data generator. It maps field operations and tells the story of the farm. That is the starting place for (Farmsight). MyJohnDeere is the way the farmer interacts with it.”
