The Climate Corp., a subsidiary of Monsanto Co., announced Nov. 13, the pre-commercial launch of the Climate FieldView digital agriculture platform into regions of Europe for the 2018 growing season. Through the company’s innovative, analytics-based digital tools, farmers in these European regions will now be able to get all of their data into one connected platform.

“Transformative digital technologies are helping more farmers around the world gain a deeper understanding of their fields through easy-to-use tools that are helping enhance their operations through the power of data,” Climate Corp. chief executive officer Mike Stern said. “Farmers around the world are experiencing the value of the Climate FieldView platform on millions of acres, and soon, farmers in Europe will have the opportunity to bring their field data to life. Farmers will be able to seamlessly collect data, quickly visualize it and gain personalized insights to optimize agronomic practices and make critical management decisions that impact sustainable crop production.”

Over the past year, the Climate FieldView platform conducted robust testing efforts across farms in Germany, France and Ukraine. For the upcoming season, more farmers in these countries will be able to experience data collection and visualization in the cab of their equipment, along with additional tools to analyze and evaluate crop performance and manage variability through customized seeding and fertility prescriptions.

“Climate FieldView is an extremely user-friendly, intuitive tool,” said Andreas Roehrl, a farmer from Bavaria who participated in beta testing the Climate FieldView platform this season. “From my point of view, it is the first tool that has the potential to help me finally get all my data in one place and easily analyze all the available information to start planning ahead and ensure I'm making the best decisions for the success of my operation. I’m excited to accompany this coming year's growing season and harvest with Climate FieldView, and I hope the positive projections on my business can be implemented in practice and will bring desired results.”

Additional digital product offerings in Europe

As part of Climate Corp.’s suite of digital technologies, the company has two additional product offerings. The first is VitalFields, an Estonia-based farm management software company Climate Corp. acquired in late 2016 that delivers a simple farm management tool, allowing farmers to plan and manage their field activities and generate management and compliance reports automatically to ensure compliance with European Union environmental standards. The widely adopted VitalFields system continues to expand its footprint in Europe, with plans for integration into the Climate FieldView platform in coming seasons.

The second product offering is the AquaTEK irrigation system, launched by Monsanto Europe in early 2017, to provide farmers with an irrigation management tool for efficient water use in corn powered by an advanced analytics-based irrigation platform that is delivered through HydroBio, which was acquired by Climate Corp. in April 2017.

The Climate FieldView platform will be available in Germany, France and Ukraine so farmers can begin using it on their farms in time for planting of summer crops. To experience the complete value of the platform throughout the entire growing season, the company suggested that farmers sign up for a Climate FieldView account this winter. The VitalFields tool is currently available in Germany, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Romania and Switzerland. The AquaTEK system is currently available in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Climate Corp. said new data layers will feed the company’s research and development (R&D) engine, ultimately enabling the development of valuable new features for farmers in the Climate FieldView platform. In August 2017, the company announced the acceleration of R&D advancements through its innovation pipeline, along with new product features and enhancements to help farmers manage their field variability more precisely.

Launched in 2015, the Climate FieldView platform is in use on more than 120 million acres, with more than 100,000 users across the U.S., Canada and Brazil, making it the most broadly connected platform in the industry -- and one that continues to expand into new global regions.