OSLO, Norway and ARMONK, N.Y. — Yara International, a global crop nutrition company and IBM announced an agreement to build the world's leading digital farming platform, providing holistic digital services and instant agronomic advice.

Yara and IBM Services will jointly innovate and commercialize digital agricultural solutions that will help increase global food production by drawing on the two companies' complementary capabilities: Yara's agronomic knowledge, backed by more than 800 agronomists and a century of experience, and IBM's digital platforms, services and expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. 

The joint global digital farming platform will apply artificial intelligence, machine learning and in-field data to unlock new insights for farmers. The digital platform will have worldwide coverage and aspires to reach 100 million hectares of farmland – which is equivalent to twice the size of Spain or close to 7% of all arable land worldwide* including millions of smallholder farms.  

As a first step, Yara and IBM will establish joint innovation teams, collaborating at digital hubs in Europe, Singapore, the U.S. and Brazil. The teams will work closely with IBM researchers to develop new capabilities, such as visual analytics and machine learning techniques for crop insights. The first services are planned for end 2019.

Advancing the digital frontier of farming

The Yara/IBM partnership will focus on all aspects of farm optimization. One specific area of collaboration will be weather data. The ability to respond optimally to weather conditions is critical for farming. By merging analytical insights from IBM's Watson Studio, IBM PAIRS technology, The Weather Company and other services, with Yara's crop knowledge and modeling capabilities, the joint platform will not only provide hyperlocal weather forecasts but will in addition give real-time actionable recommendations, tailored to the specific needs of individual fields/crops.

As the joint digital farming platform expands, the teams will explore innovative business solutions to integrate the joint platform into the IBM Food Trust, IBM's blockchain-enabled network of food chain players. This will allow for greater traceability and supply chain efficiency as well as ways to tackle food fraud, food waste and sustainability. It will firmly link the farm into the full food chain, creating a holistic approach to food production from farm to plate.  

The contract was signed in April 2019.