Global agribusiness giant ADM is looking for partners to license its new crop assessment technology, the company announced on 5 November.
The company’s appeal for partners followed its receipt of two re-issued patents for its technology which combines the use of aircraft, photography and complex algorithms to assess crop conditions and forecast crop production.
“We originally developed this cutting-edge technology for use in our crop insurance business and, today, we believe it has wide applicability across the agricultural world,” said Dan Nisser, CFO of ADM’s Ag Services and Oilseeds business.
“It’s clear that aerial mapping and evaluation is a significant differentiator in agriculture – and a market that could exceed US$5bn in the coming years.”
Technology using agricultural aircraft could assess crops by tracking plant growth, identifying crop stress due to weather or pest damage, forecasting commodity yields and more, ADM said.
Meanwhile, image data – including photographic, multispectral, hyperspectral, and infrared – combined with analytics tools could provide up-to-date and actionable information to growers, seed dealers, crop insurance companies, commodity dealers and others.
