BASF recently announced plans to expand its services and initiatives for growers and agricultural professionals worldwide in 2014 through a significant investment in the development of new IT tools.

“The initiatives that were announced reflect the very strong commitment by BASF to the agricultural industry to provide modern tools to help growers get the most out of every acre,” said Nevin McDougall, BASF Senior Vice President Crop Protection North America.

BASF has also announced a partnership with John Deere to jointly develop a suite of integrated precision farming and farm management solutions for farmers. “We see the partnership allowing us to integrate BASF’s expertise in agronomics and crop protection and biotechnology with John Deere’s strengths in agricultural machinery, equipment, precision ag, and data management,” Nevin said. As part of the agreement, BASF will offer a new service for field scouting and agronomic decision support. John Deere will provide a new application for sprayer setup as well as integration of field data via its collaborative farm management portal ‘MyJohnDeere.com’, which will enable growers to better manage their farm operations.

Nevin says BASF says the goal is to launch the first joint integrated tools by the end of 2014 in key agricultural markets with additional markets to follow.

Listen to or download my interview with Nevin here. Interview with Nevin McDougall, BASF