 | |
| Industry | Agriculture |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founder | David Friedberg, Siraj Khaliq |
| Fate | subsidiary of Bayer |
| Headquarters | , USA |
Key people |
|
| Parent | Bayer |
| Website | climate |
The Climate Corporation is a digital agriculture company that examines weather, soil and field data to help farmers determine potential yield-limiting factors in their fields. [1]
The company was founded as WeatherBill in 2006 by two former Google employees, David Friedberg and Siraj Khaliq.
The company began as a startup focused on helping people and businesses manage and adapt to climate change, by providing weather insurance to ski resorts, large event venues, and farmers. In 2010, it decided to focus exclusively on agriculture, and launched the Total Weather Insurance Product in fall 2010 for corn and soybeans. [2] [3]
In late 2010 and early 2011, SV Angel invested in WeatherBill's Series B. [4]
On October 11, 2011, WeatherBill changed its name to The Climate Corporation. [5]
In June 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency authorized the Climate Corporation to administer federal crop insurance policies for the 2014 crop year. [6]
In October 2013, Monsanto announced that it was acquiring the company for approximately $1.1 billion. [7]
In November 2013, the company launched Climate Basic and Climate Pro, a set of advisory tools for farmers utilizing data science to help farmers make optimal decisions. [8]
In February 2014, the company announced it merged with Monsanto's Integrated Farming System and Precision Planting divisions. [9] In February 2014, the company also acquired Solum, a soil testing company based in Ames, Iowa. [10]
In December 2014, the company acquired 640 Labs, an agricultural technology startup based in Chicago. 640 Labs created the Drive device (later renamed the Fieldview Drive) that reads data from the CANBUS of tractors and connects to an iPad or iPhone. [11]
In July 2015, the company sold its crop insurance business to AmTrust Financial Services, enabling The Climate Corporation to focus exclusively on its digital agriculture platform. Details of the agreement were not disclosed. [12]
In September 2015, the company re-branded its Climate Basic and Climate Pro products as Climate FieldView. [13]
In November 2015, the company signed a definitive agreement with John Deere to sell Precision Planting LLC. [14]
In March 2016, the company announced data connectivity agreements with several agronomic retailers and retailer software systems through the use of APIs. [15]
In May 2017, the agreement to sell Precision Planting LLC to John Deere was terminated. In August 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice had filed a lawsuit to block the sale, arguing the deal could make it more expensive for farmers to use fast, precise planting technology. Precision Planting CEO Michael Stern stated: "We just didn't see that there was a clear path going forward, that the DOJ was going to approve the transaction. We have a valuable business and people in limbo and it was just time to move on." [16]
In June 2018, Bayer acquired Monsanto and Precision Planting with it. [17]
Formerly Climate Basic and Climate Pro, the Climate Corporation re-branded its product to Climate FieldView, making the announcement at the 2015 Farm Progress Show. The Climate FieldView Platform uses data science to provide farmers insights and data of their fields based on historical crop, field, and weather data.
Field Health Advisor provides farmers satellite images of their fields depicting crop health and vegetation maps. Script Creator allows farmers to create variable-rate prescriptions before planting.
Climate FieldView Drive is a Bluetooth enabled device that plugs into a tractor or combine and reads machine data during planting and harvest. The data is displayed in real-time to the Climate FieldView Cab app.
Climate FieldView Prime includes weather and scouting. It allows farmers to see a weather forecast up to three hours in advance, and provides the ability to scout potential issues in the field. Farmers can drop a pin on that location on the map to scout the precise location throughout the season.
The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in the 1970s. Later, the company became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. In 2018, the company ranked 199th on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring and responding to temporal and spatial variability to improve agricultural production sustainability. It is used in both crop and livestock production. Precision agriculture often employs technologies to automate agricultural operations, improving their diagnosis, decision-making or performing. First conceptual work on PA and practical applications go back in the late 1980s. The goal of precision agriculture research is to define a decision support system (DSS) for whole farm management with the goal of optimizing returns on inputs while preserving resources.
A cash crop or profit crop is an agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop in subsistence agriculture, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), more informally called the American Farm Bureau (AFB) or simply the Farm Bureau, is a United States-based trade association, lobbying group, and insurance network. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Farm Bureau has affiliates in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Each affiliate is a (state or county) Farm Bureau, and the parent organization is also often called simply the Farm Bureau.
Deere & Company, doing business as John Deere, is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains used in heavy equipment, and lawn care equipment. The company also provides financial services and other related activities.
DTN, previously known as Telvent DTN, Data Transmission Network and Dataline, is a private company based in Burnsville, Minnesota that specializes in subscription-based services for the analysis and delivery of real-time weather, agricultural, energy, and commodity market information. As of 2018 the company has approximately 600,000 subscribers, mostly in the United States. DTN is known for its accurate meteorological forecasting and large network of weather stations, its market analysis services, and its early use of radio and satellite systems to transmit reports to its Midwestern consumers. DTN also operates The Progressive Farmer magazine. DTN was previously owned by Telvent and Schneider Electric, and since 2017 has been owned by Zurich-based TBG.
Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser [2004] 1 S.C.R. 902, 2004 SCC 34 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on patent rights for biotechnology, between a Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, and the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto. The court heard the question of whether Schmeiser's intentionally growing genetically modified plants constituted "use" of Monsanto's patented genetically modified plant cells. By a 5-4 majority, the court ruled that it did. The Supreme Court also ruled 9-0 that Schmeiser did not have to pay Monsanto their technology use fee, damages or costs, as Schmeiser did not receive any benefit from the technology. The case drew worldwide attention and is widely misunderstood to concern what happens when farmers' fields are accidentally contaminated with patented seed. However, by the time the case went to trial, all claims of accidental contamination had been dropped; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted. Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.
Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s, concerns have been raised about the dangers of the technology. Laws, regulations, and treaties were created in the years following to contain genetically modified organisms and prevent their escape. Nevertheless, there are several examples of failure to keep GM crops separate from conventional ones.
Genetically modified food controversies are disputes over the use of foods and other goods derived from genetically modified crops instead of conventional crops, and other uses of genetic engineering in food production. The disputes involve consumers, farmers, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists. The key areas of controversy related to genetically modified food are whether such food should be labeled, the role of government regulators, the objectivity of scientific research and publication, the effect of genetically modified crops on health and the environment, the effect on pesticide resistance, the impact of such crops for farmers, and the role of the crops in feeding the world population. In addition, products derived from GMO organisms play a role in the production of ethanol fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Dicamba is a broad-spectrum herbicide first registered in 1967. Brand names for formulations of this herbicide include Dianat, Banvel, Diablo, Oracle and Vanquish. This chemical compound is a chlorinated derivative of o-anisic acid.
The Early Girl tomato is a medium-sized globe-type F1 hybrid popular with home gardeners because of its early ripening fruit. Early Girl is a cultivar of tomato with indeterminate growth, which means it produces flowers and fruit until it is killed by frost or another external factor. It grows tall, therefore it needs support as the plant grows. Fruit maturity ranges from 50 to 62 days after transplanting, depending on the source, which appeals to growers in climates with shorter growing seasons. Early Girl can tolerate temperatures as low as 40 °F (4 °C) and is well-suited to hot, dry climates. Early girl is reliable and prolific.
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that they tow or operate. Diverse arrays of equipment are used in both organic and nonorganic farming. Especially since the advent of mechanised agriculture, agricultural machinery is an indispensable part of how the world is fed. Agricultural machinery can be regarded as part of wider agricultural automation technologies, which includes the more advanced digital equipment and robotics. While agricultural robots have the potential to automate the three key steps involved in any agricultural operation, conventional motorized machinery is used principally to automate only the performing step where diagnosis and decision-making are conducted by humans based on observations and experience.
A driverless tractor is an autonomous farm vehicle that delivers a high tractive effort at slow speeds for the purposes of tillage and other agricultural tasks. It is considered driverless because it operates without the presence of a human inside the tractor itself. Like other unmanned ground vehicles, they are programmed to independently observe their position, decide speed, and avoid obstacles such as people, animals, or objects in the field while performing their task. The various driverless tractors are split into full autonomous technology and supervised autonomy. The idea of the driverless tractor appears as early as 1940, but the concept has significantly evolved in the last few years. The tractors use GPS and other wireless technologies to farm land without requiring a driver. They operate simply with the aid of a supervisor monitoring the progress at a control station or with a manned tractor in lead.
Genetic engineering in Hawaii is a hotly contested political topic. The Hawaiian islands counties of Kauai, Hawaii and Maui passed or considered laws restricting the practice within their borders due to concerns about the health, the environment and impacts on conventional and organic agriculture.
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Granular Inc. is a San Francisco-based agricultural software development company focused on helping farmers be more profitable and efficient. The company's software products provide farmers tools to manage their financial performance and manage agronomic inputs for maximum performance and return. In addition to digital tools for farmers, Granular also owns AgStudio, a precision ag software company used primarily by ag retailers and professional agronomists, as well as AcreValue, a website that uses proprietary algorithms to provide estimated land values.
Adapt-N is a precision nitrogen management solution operated by Agronomic Technology Corp. It was developed at Cornell University. It examines soil, weather, crop, field management data to provide an always-on, field-specific nitrogen recommendation that has been shown to improve financial and environmental performance.
Digital agriculture, sometimes known as smart farming or e-agriculture, is tools that digitally collect, store, analyze, and share electronic data and/or information in agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has described the digitalization process of agriculture as the digital agricultural revolution. Other definitions, such as those from the United Nations Project Breakthrough, Cornell University, and Purdue University, also emphasize the role of digital technology in the optimization of food systems.
David Albert Friedberg is an American entrepreneur, businessman, and angel investor. He founded and was chief executive of The Climate Corporation, whose $1.1 billion sale to Monsanto in 2013 made it the first unicorn in the emerging agricultural technology space. He is currently founder and CEO of The Production Board (TPB). He is a co-host of the All-In podcast. Spanning his career, he has contributed to 32 patents.