Bayer and Microsoft expand collaboration to advance digital farming

HANOVER / Germany, 13 November 2023: Bayer and Microsoft today announced an expansion of their strategic collaboration to advance digital farming and make it easier for farmers to share and benefit from their data.

The companies are introducing new data connectors, AgPowered Services, and integrations with Microsoft Fabric to make it easier for businesses and organizations across the agri-food value chain to connect to farm data and build digital solutions that support sustainable and regenerative practices.

New data connectors make it easier to connect to farm data

Bayer is developing new AgPowered Services that allow for machine data connectivity with leading OEMs, including Stara, Topcon, and Trimble. This will give enterprise users of Azure Data Manager a one-stop solution to connect securely and compliantly to key data sources for farm machinery data.

Bayer is also working with Leaf Agriculture to make it easier for companies to work with consistent data in a single format. Leaf’s Farm Machinery Decoder service, now available as an AgPowered Service, can translate machine data from many different OEMs and platforms.

AgPowered Services provide ready-to-use capabilities for start-ups to global enterprises

AgPowered Services are cloud-based solutions that provide data science solutions for agri-food companies to leverage the data within the Data Manager for Agriculture platform to generate insights, enable collaboration, and provide transparency to consumers, regulators, and stakeholders.

One new AgPowered Service, Bayer In-Season Crop Identification powered by OneSoil, provides remote sensing capabilities (satellite imagery) allowing for in-season detection of key cash crops such as corn and soybean, alongside an additional ten crops, across North America, South America, and Europe.

Integrations with Microsoft Fabric support greater interoperability and AI-powered analytics

Bayer and Microsoft are also integrating Azure Data Manager with Microsoft Fabric, a unified analytics platform that helps organizations bring together all the data and analytics tools they need to deliver AI-powered solutions. This integration will make it easier for customers to accelerate time to insight and build solutions that are not limited by specific data types and sources.

Quotes:

"Bayer and Microsoft are committed to helping farmers and the agri-food industry adopt digital technologies that can support sustainable and regenerative practices," said Jeremy Williams, Head of Climate LLC and Digital Farming for Bayer’s Crop Science Division. "Our expanded collaboration is making it easier for businesses and organizations across the value chain to connect to farm data and build solutions that deliver value to farmers."

"Microsoft is excited to expand our collaboration with Bayer to advance digital farming," said Satish Thomas, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Industry Clouds. "By integrating Azure Data Manager with Microsoft Fabric and providing ready-to-use AgPowered Services, we are making it easier for customers to accelerate innovation and build solutions that support the future of agriculture."
Conclusion

The expanded collaboration between Bayer and Microsoft is a significant step forward for digital farming. The new data connectors, AgPowered Services, and integrations with Microsoft Fabric will make it easier for businesses and organizations of all sizes to connect to farm data and build solutions that support sustainable and regenerative practices.