John Deere Is Working With Agri Software Developers.

Nov 19, 2014

By Joe Dales, Farms.com

John Deere is a leader in developing Precision Agriculture software and technologies for farmers and the company is increasingly reaching out to agriculture software providers to increase the scale and scope of the information services available to the market.

Recently John Deere organized and ran an annual conference for software developers to discuss how systems can be integrated to help farmers manage their information. The 2014 Develop with Deere conference assembled a group of dealers, independent agricultural software application developers and John Deere staff primarily from their Intelligent Solutions Group.

There were a series of speakers and conference sessions networking the participants and briefing them on technology updates and education on how to best solve IT issues.

Starting the conference was a keynote presentation by Pat Pinkston, Vice President, Technology and Information Solutions, Agriculture and Turf Division. Pat provided an overview on the challenges and opportunities of new technology in the precision agriculture sector. Some of the major challenges he sees include the difficulty to prove returns, the complex management of data and operations and that it may challenge the farmer’s intuition and experience. Pinkston also said that precision agriculture needs a consistent and accurate flow of data combined with expert agronomic decision making and the ability to execute and monitor the results.

Here is a Zimmcomm video interview with Pat Pinkston discussing the Conference.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.