Agriculture and agribusinesses benefit from a wide range of digital tools and data-powered insights. Still, there is work to do to optimize the entire food, feed, fuel and fiber value chain.

Bayer announced today a strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new cloud-based set of digital tools and data science solutions for use in agriculture. The partnership will bring new infrastructure and foundational capabilities to accelerate innovation, boost efficiency and support sustainability across value chains. The partnership builds upon a longstanding relationship between Bayer and Microsoft, and a shared commitment to data privacy, cyber security and customer trust.

Under the agreement, Bayer will work with Microsoft to develop new solutions to help with farming operations, sustainable sourcing, supply chain improvement and more. These new solutions and capabilities will be available to ag businesses and adjacent industries for use in their own offerings.

Bayer will also migrate its digital farming core capabilities to the new infrastructure for its own customer-facing solutions.

“As agriculture and technology entrepreneurs and organizations work to advance the security and sustainability of the value chain – supporting farmers at its foundation – collaboration is required,” said Jeremy Williams, Head of The Climate Corporation and Bayer Digital Farming Solutions. “Bayer is pioneering digital innovation within agriculture. Microsoft is setting the standard in trusted, global cloud solutions. Together, we can innovate and implement as a team to deliver the food, feed, fiber and fuel needed to power our planet.”

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“Like every industry, farming and the food sector are undergoing rapid digital transformation, from autonomous tractors, to AI-based digital advisories, and scalable precision agriculture,” said Ravi Krishnaswamy, Corporate Vice President, Azure Global Industry at Microsoft. “We’re excited to partner with Bayer to accelerate this transformation and unlock even greater agricultural innovation by bringing together data-driven insights with Bayer’s agronomic expertise and the power of Microsoft Azure.”

This partnership is a significant, strategic step forward in accomplishing Bayer’s ambitious target of 100-percent digitally enabled sales in the Crop Science division by 2030 and accelerating its ability to deliver outcomes-based, digitally enabled solutions to customers.

Source: Bayer, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.