AGCO has announced a new customer support resource, the Fuse Contact Center, to assist customers with setup, calibration and operation of AGCO precision agriculture and machine communication technology products.

Current estimates are that the size of the precision agriculture market investments in the U.S. by producers and service providers using precision ag technology will be growing by at least 13 percent per year during the next five years to reach $3 billion to $3.5 billion.

Farms.com is pleased to announce the organization of the first Precision Agriculture Conference in Ontario.  “Last year, I would have said that most people thought the reality of benefits from Precision Agriculture were several years away,” says Farms.com Executive Vice President Joe Dales. “But, in 2013 many of the technologies started to come together in a very meaningful way. Precision Agriculture is a reality for 2014.”

 James Szabo, who has travelled the world investigating technological advances in agriculture as part of a year-long Nuffield Scholarship, will make his predictions for the future at the Norfolk Farming Conference on February 20. Delegates at the John Innes Conference Centre, in Norwich, will be told how different types of robots are likely to play a key role on farms, improving crop yields and saving labour.

Some big investors are looking at Ag’s new opportunities to be had. Just a few months ago, Monsanto bought Climate Corp for a whopping $930 million. More recently, Horizons Ventures, the investment firm of the big-hitting Chinese investor Li Ka Shing, invested in Kaiima, an Israeli biotech company that raised $65 million from investors. There’s lots of room to grow, and therefore, lots to learn.

Topcon Precision Agriculture has named Aaron Shultz regional sales manager for the southern region of the United States.

SST Software, an industry leader in precision agriculture, will soon offer remote sensing services to growers and ag service providers in partnership with GeoVantage, a global provider of multispectral imagery.

Field Intelligence, a Quake Global distribution partner, is offering a range of machine-to-machine (M2M) data communication solutions for the agricultural market, built around QUAKE’s advanced and versatile Q4000 remote asset tracking and monitoring device.

When Gregg Carlson served in the U.S. Rangers in the early 1970s, he used the first-generation GPS system. Carlson was so impressed with the technology that he’s spent much of his post-military career educating farmers about the benefits of GPS and other precision ag tools.