Through Fendt, Farmer Core and autonomous solutions, AGCO is focusing on smarter equipment, on-farm service and data-driven farming operations.
AGCO is pointing to a combination of premium equipment, dealer support and technology as key factors behind its performance in the North American agricultural market.
Speaking to Farms.com, AGCO President and CEO Eric P. Hansotia highlighted the expansion of the Fendt brand, changes to equipment distribution and investments in autonomous farming technology.
Hansotia said AGCO has been working to establish Fendt as a global brand based on its well-known strength in Europe for decades. In North America, the company is positioning Fendt equipment toward farmers seeking high levels of performance, fuel efficiency, precision, and technology.
FarmerCore
The strategy is being supported by a distribution model known as FarmerCore, which is designed to bring more equipment services directly to farms.
"FarmerCore is a flipping of the traditional distribution strategy," explained Hansotia, "where instead of the farmer having to come to a brick-and-mortar dealership for researching the machine, buying the machine, getting their service, getting their parts. We bring the business to the farm. FarmerCore is remotely monitoring the farmer's equipment, coming to the farm to do all the maintenance or repair proactively."
Under the approach, dealers can remotely monitor equipment, identify potential maintenance or repair issues, and schedule service at the farm. AGCO also encourages participating dealers to help customers with compatible work on equipment from other manufacturers.
According to Hansotia, the strategy is intended to make equipment ownership more convenient while strengthening relationships between farmers and dealers.
Hansotia said customer satisfaction has improved as the company has expanded these services. He also identified labor shortages, increasing input costs, and the challenge of turning large amounts of farm data into useful information as major concerns for farmers.
Autonomy helps with labor shortages
Autonomy is one area AGCO sees as a potential response to labor constraints. The company’s OutRun autonomous system can be installed on existing tractors, including equipment from competing brands.
One application allows an autonomous tractor and grain cart to work alongside a combine during harvest. The tractor can respond when the combine needs to unload, travel alongside it during unloading, and move away when the task is complete, reducing the need for an additional operator.
"Sometimes I would help my neighbors with the fall harvest when I lived in Iowa," shared Hansotia. "I'd be the tractor operator and when somebody, a part-time person like me, does that, the combine guy would usually slow down. They’d say, ‘Eric's not so good at this and we better not have a situation where he runs into something.’ But with automation, you no longer need to slow down.
"There's a productivity advantage there and you can run later into the day and so on. So, lots of reasons why to do implement autonomy. Labor is a big part of it," he concluded.
Tillage
Another OutRun autonomous application focuses on tillage. Once farmers establish field boundaries and operating parameters, tractors can till the soil independently.
AGCO says safety systems, including cameras and lidar technology, are designed to identify obstacles and either stop or navigate around them. If the system encounters a situation it cannot safely resolve, it is designed to stop and request human intervention.
AGCO also plans to expand autonomous applications across more stages of crop production by 2030. Alongside autonomy, the company is developing FarmENGAGE as a mixed-fleet data platform capable of working with equipment from different manufacturers.
The platform is designed to collect and analyze farm data, while allowing farmers to create and transfer task information across compatible equipment.
Hansotia says that together, AGCO’s Fendt portfolio, FarmerCore distribution strategy, autonomous technology, and FarmENGAGE mixed-fleet data capabilities reflect the company’s broader effort to build technology and services around farmers’ changing operational needs.
Photo Credit: Farmer-core
Watch the video of the interview with AGCO Corporation President and CEO Eric P. Hansotia below.