Farm Data Compatibility and Security Benefits Everyone
AGCO, and advocacy and industry consortiums that are working to ensure technology works best for the producer.
By Des Keller
Fuse Technologies
AGCO’s Fuse Technologies initiative—announced in 2013 with a rollout beginning this year—will establish compatibility between AGCO’s 15 brands as well as the technology of other equipment makers.
“This strategy allows for open operations across farms with multiple [brands]—be they red, yellow, green or blue tractors—so everything can work together,” says Jason O’Flanagan, senior marketing specialist for AGCO’s Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS). The initiative will also include brands manufactured and marketed by AGCO. “AGCO is so much larger than just tractors. We are also GSI storage systems and moving grain for storage, and using Fuse allows us to open it up to work with everyone.”
AGCO is working within the industry, including with AgGateway (see below), to establish a common electronic architecture (CEA) among equipment makers. As a central component of Fuse, CEA to allow technologies from these different companies to work together.
Such compatibility will allow seamless connectivity across a producer’s fleet and farm management and precision ag technologies, as well as throughout the crop cycle. That means growers and their partners will get more useful data faster from the full spectrum of their equipment—allowing them to implement field recommendations quicker.
“Rarely does anyone have a pure fleet,” says O’Flanagan. “The vast majority of farm operations worldwide have equipment from a variety of brands.
“With Fuse our plan is to make all that equipment and all those technologies operate in a way that’s best for the customer. That way they can use all the equipment they have or buy what’s best in class at a particular time without hindering their operation in the future.”
For more information, visit www.agcotechnologies.com.
AgGateway
AgGateway is a non-profit consortium of 180 businesses in the U.S. and Canada, serving the agriculture industry with the mission to promote, enable and expand eBusiness in agriculture. The long-term vision is to become the recognized international source for standardizing the use of information and communication technologies for agriculture.
AgGateway, of which AGCO is a member, has groups working in nine industry segments: ag retail, allied providers (systems and software developers), crop nutrition, crop protection, feed, grain, ornamental horticulture, precision agriculture, and seed.
For more information, visit www.Aggateway.org.
Grower Information Services Cooperative (GISC)
GISC was formed by farmers in Texas in 2012 to help producers nationally to collect, retain and deliver their data as its members dictate. The group functions like any other cooperative except the commodity being stored, disseminated and potentially marketed is information about members’ farms.
The cooperative, which is also a member of Ag Gateway, is a neutral player in precision agriculture, not a farm management information system and doesn’t seek to compete with agricultural software that exists in the industry. The group does work with corporate partners who see the benefit in working with a cooperative that already has members in 24 states.
For more information, visit www.gisc.coop.
AGCO Opens Technology Support Center
AGCO’s new Fuse Contact Center is designed to assist customers with setup, calibration and operation of AGCO precision agriculture and machine communication technology products. The Fuse Contact Center supports AGCOMMAND, AGCOMMAND API, Fendt VarioDoc, Auto-Guide 3000, Fendt VarioGuide, AgControl, FieldStar II and System 110, 150, 350, AES 25 technologies.
By calling toll-free AGCO Answers, 877-525-4384, customers can speak with an AGCO-trained support specialist for assistance using these AGCO fuse technologies. For more information, visit www.agcotechnologies.com.
