Connecting Farm Data

Connecting Farm Data

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Two companies that are household names, Bayer and Microsoft, have teamed up to develop data infrastructure to connect farm data from disparate sources. Bayer’s Mark Pendergrast says the platform, called Ag Powered Services is built upon Microsoft’s Azure Data Manager for Agriculture, can serve as the base for future applications.

Pendergrast... "Right, what we're doing right here with Azure Data Manager for Ag and Ag Powered Services effectively is building the plumbing infrastructure, behind the scenes, if you will, the critical digital infrastructure that enables innovation. We're not in the business necessarily of managing the water flow per se, right? The data ultimately comes from farmers with farmer consent, but the plumbing infrastructure is super important; where the pipes go, how it's all connected, how it, how it all flows is really, really important. So our job together with Microsoft is in building that plumbing infrastructure. You could call it an operating system as well, if you want. AgPower services, which are Bayer's value add to this equation, are effectively apps, but without a front end, if you will. These are API backend capabilities that are packaged together for external companies and internal, you know, Bayer apps as well to use as complements and as additions to their value add."

Pendergast says the idea is for more data layers to be added with farmer permission.

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