Bayer innovates and advances industry using Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Agriculture

Harvesting real-time data

To manage their farming operations and track crop health throughout the season, farmers need to monitor a host of variables, including records of farming activities that are generated by their farm machinery, ground moisture levels from sensors, soil pH and nutrient levels from soil testing, scouting observations, weather forecasts, and many more. The data that farmers rely on is typically stored across disparate software and technology solutions. Without a consolidated and centralized view of crop operations, farmers lack the visibility and real-time data necessary to make the best decisions for their yields.

As the world’s largest digital agriculture solution provider, Bayer launched its Climate FieldView technology in 2015 to help farmers gain access to these critical insights. Used by farmers globally, Climate FieldView helps farmers seamlessly collect, store, and view field data, using this information to help farms optimize inputs, maximize profits, and produce crops that feed and fuel a growing population. Currently, Climate FieldView supports farms around the world, totaling more than 220 million acres (about twice the area of California), making it the industry’s largest digital-farming solution.

“Climate FieldView helps farmers take control of their data in a single location, making it possible for them to analyze what worked and what didn't from season to season,” says Brandon Rinkenberger, Chief Customer Officer, Climate and Digital Farming at Bayer. “This brings greater confidence to the decisions they have to make.”

Climate FieldView stores real-time farming data in an easy-to-use, centralized platform, helping farmers analyze on-the-spot information through one convenient touchpoint. Additionally, the tool offers farmers the ability to survey their crops via satellite imagery. This data is converted to color-coded map overlays that show how crops are performing within the boundaries of the field. Viewing these maps on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device, farmers can quickly see which plots of land need attention without having to physically survey the entire farm. 

Saving time and money with a new platform

The tool’s rapid adoption brought increases in operating costs, administrative resources, and time spent managing the solution. To improve Climate FieldView’s capabilities and continue to ensure farmers’ data privacy, Bayer needed a solution that could support large datasets, streamline sizeable data pipelines, and ensure that customer data is stored in a trusted cloud. Bayer chose Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Agriculture as the new cloud platform. With its decades of agriculture expertise—as well as data connectors, models, transformations, and workflows—Bayer knew it could work with Microsoft to accurately inform Azure Data Manager, and empower farmers and agricultural organizations to effectively address their specific challenges. 

“Large datasets like weather and satellite imagery can be a challenge to manage and maintain,” says Ines Kapphan, VP Data & Cloud Solutions, Climate and Digital Farming at Bayer. “Microsoft is the best in the industry when it comes to data architecture, so moving some of these large datasets from Climate FieldView to Azure Data Manager for Agriculture made a lot of sense. This will enable our Climate FieldView teams to put more focus on our farmer customers and the solutions they need.”

With Azure Data Manager for Agriculture, Bayer anticipates its data will be presented in more normalized structures. This includes providing the infrastructure for enabling relationships between disparate, multi-dimensional data types, with support for eliminating data redundancy and errors, all the way to leveraging tooling solutions for the next generation of analysis-ready data sets. Improving Climate FieldView’s interoperability through a more robust digital cloud infrastructure will help Bayer expand its reach to more customers, cut operation costs, and save employees time by automating tasks and delivering faster insights. It will also give employees more time to focus on the next generation of digital innovation that will help farmers succeed. 

“Azure Data Manager for Agriculture handles data structuring which helps accelerate innovation. Climate FieldView can focus on finding digital solutions for further insights that farmers can utilize,” says Kapphan. “We are excited about our continued work with Microsoft on this solution and feel the partnership between our companies and complementary skillsets will enable broader industry advancement throughout future decades.”

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