A ‘Smart’ System for Future-Forward Farmers
NEVONEX links machinery and workflows through new digital services to increase yields, save time and reduce costs.
By Doug Guth
PrecisionAg Alliance Contributor
When NEVONEX founder Micha Muenzenmay talks to growers about utilizing technology to help run their enterprises, he often hears the same story. While farmers are open to high-tech investment, the wealth of individual options makes choosing a system somewhat intimidating.
“It’s a little like a smartphone – there are so many coming out, and if you wait for a little longer, then a better one comes out,” says Muenzenmay, who developed the NEVONEX digital ecosystem under the umbrella of Germany-headquartered engineering and technology firm Bosch. “The question is, is there a multi-functional ‘Swiss Army knife’ in which I can decide on what tools I put in? From the grower side, you say ‘All right, I should invest my money in a tool, so what digital services are on the platform?”’
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NEVONEX powered by Bosch styles itself as a joint partner solution for “smart” digital agriculture. As an independent, manufacturer-agnostic platform, the system links machinery and workflows through software applications to increase yields, save time and reduce costs.
Farmers select individual packages of digital services, while resource or service suppliers along the retail chain add their own functions and tools to the online infrastructure, allowing end users to more easily automate complicated machinery and work processes.
“Retailers know their growers’ pains and they know their market,” says Muenzenmay. “I encourage retailers to align with ecosystems, and on these ecosystems produce content that makes a difference to the growers.”
A collaborative technology
Once a NEVONEX-enabled control unit is installed, the Digital Service can run directly on connected manufacturer’s agricultural machines. Integrating the unit into electronic architecture facilitates automation and thorough documentation of work processes.
Muenzenmay says, “Once the function is there, the back end is connected. Everything is about collaboration, because we learned that many of our partners require help in marketing and making a business model based on digital services. Usually, they come out of the traditional industry of seeds, fertilizer, crop protection, or machines, and now they’re in the digital space of services. In this space, the value proposition needs to be worked out for the grower, because the grower wants to know what’s in it for them and why they should use it.”
Muenzenmay again compares this dilemma to smartphone functionality, where browsing through applications leads to questions about what actual benefits they deliver. In the agtech space, growers need similar convincing on the value proposition of digital adoption.
Luckily, NEVONEX partners have come on board to ease the technological transition for farmers and suppliers alike. These important players provide a suite of online offerings, from machinery interfaces to compatible sensors to NEVONEX-enabled control units and installation services. For example, AGCO joined the partner network earlier this year as a continuation of their objectives to make data management easier for farmers, ultimately unlocking more value for their operations. NEVONEX enables AGCO’s client growers to deploy the technology’s enhanced functions on AGCO farm equipment.
Taking data from machine-fitted sensors gives growers the ability to adjust, for instance, their seed and fertilizer distribution. Farmers can also run several machine-based digital services simultaneously – thanks to automatic data transfer, users no longer need flash drives to store information. When the system is utilized offline, data can be updated in the farmyard via Wi-Fi.
“When you invest in an open ecosystem like NEVONEX, you are future-proofing your organization,” says Maximilian Treiber, NEVONEX research lead from the Technical University of Munich. “It doesn’t matter what kind of machinery fleet you have, the technology with its architecture and functionality has already taken care of you, because you’ll be able to use all the digital services that come to this platform in the future.”
Nor do adopters need to worry about security, as meticulous safety standards protect data from unauthorized access. What’s more, agricultural businesses can develop a “smart” equipment fleet that benefits from the smooth interaction between connected devices.
An increasingly tech-reliant industry will require the type of inventive freedom NEVONEX provides – what Muenzenmay calls a “democratization” for growers.
“The farmer has the ability to make a free choice in the stuff that he consumes,” Muenzenmay says. “Again, like in smartphones, whether you use WhatsApp or WeChat or whatever, it’s just a tap away from you as a user. It’s you that makes the decision, and you can change from one service to another. This is what we believe is the value of NEVONEX as an enabler technology.”
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