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The agricultural industry is at a turning point. While food may seem plentiful in many regions of the world, the number of people going hungry has continued to rise over the past nine years. 1 To feed growing populations sustainably and efficiently, the way we produce food must change. From the ground – where improvements in farming practices can help mitigate climate change – to the shelf – where customers look for products with a minimal carbon footprint – the agricultural and food value chain is primed for innovation.
That’s why we are pleased to announce that the Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Agriculture is now available for visualization. At Microsoft, we’ve long recognized that industry-wide scaling innovation starts with data. What started with FarmBeats Projectone ambitious initiative to collect and transform agricultural data, has now evolved into a timely business solution.
O Azure Data Manager for Agriculture estende a Microsoft Smart Data Platform with data connectors and industry-specific resources to link references from disparate sources, enabling organizations to leverage high-quality information sets and accelerate the development of digital agriculture solutions. So, instead of dedicating resources to managing unstructured data, customers and partners can focus on product innovation from abundant and readily available data.
Additionally, organizations can use internal, third-party, or Intelligent Data Platform services to accelerate the development of analytics and business intelligence solutions. With an ecosystem of partners building solutions on top of Azure Data Manager, this is another step towards a connected and collaborative agriculture industry.
With so much farm-relevant data generated across the farm – from sensors in the soil to satellites orbiting Earth – many organizations don’t have the resources to leverage it effectively. Azure Data Manager for Agriculture helps break down data silos, enabling organizations to build solutions that deliver predictive and prescriptive insights into soil health, changing weather patterns, waste tracking, carbon sequestration, and more.
For example, Bayer used the solution to move from a self-managed data state to a Microsoft-managed model. The company’s FieldView platform leverages satellite and weather channel data from Azure Data Manager to enable insights into potential yield-limiting factors in growers’ fields. In addition, the company is making its industry-leading expertise available to enterprise customers in the form of AgPowered Services, a set of solutions that ingest data from Azure Data Manager to provide timely insights into crop health, weather forecasting, growing crops and much more.
Bayer is not only running its solutions on Azure Data Manager for Agriculture, but is also bringing decades of agriculture experience to help develop a robust Azure Data Manager. thanks to our strategic partnership, We’re leveraging Bayer’s industry expertise, as well as data connectors, models, transformations, and workflows, to inform how we power Azure Data Manager and empower organizations to meet the challenges of today’s agriculture.
“Azure Data Manager for Agriculture is an important step forward in accelerating the impact of big data and agriculture. With high-quality data fueling insights, we hope to see a value chain that is more predictable, more transparent and, most importantly, where value is shared all the way down to the producers.” —Jeremy Williams, Head of Climate and Digital Agriculture, Bayer Crop Science
Enabling a more sustainable future
Feeding a growing global population and building a healthier world is only possible if sustainability is practiced from farm to fork. With Azure Data Manager, agricultural input providers can accelerate solutions that empower farmers to adopt more sustainable practices. For example, the Azure Data Manager for Agriculture is a key component of Land O’Lakes’ digital offerings, including the Truterra sustainability tool. Truterra provides information on how different agricultural practices affect water, nitrogen and carbon on a farm and allows farmers to track the carbon sequestration of their soils and participate in carbon markets.
“Through our collaboration [com a Microsoft], we are enabling farmers with new services to improve their operations and quantify data for their customers that tells a sustainability story.” —Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer, Land O’Lakes, Inc.
Cultivate trust rooted in transparency
Consumers and investors are pressuring companies to be transparent regarding their agricultural and sustainability practices. With a clearer view of farming operations, companies can take an important step towards establishing trust with investors and customers. Azure Data Manager for Agriculture enables organizations to replace self-reported data with high-quality data to provide more accurate information to stakeholders, helping companies build brand trust through ethically and sustainably produced products. And as security and privacy concerns grow, organizations can rest easy knowing that their data is stored in the most trusted cloud, built to meet stringent security and compliance requirements.
Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability
Azure Data Manager for Agriculture is just one part of Microsoft’s commitment to accelerate progress towards a more sustainable planet. With its upcoming initiative, Project FarmVibes, Microsoft Research is creating AI toolkits and models that are available on Microsoft Open Source to advance agricultural innovation in the scientific community across academia and business.
Microsoft also launched the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which empowers organizations to accelerate sustainability progress and business growth by bringing together a growing set of environmental, social and governance (ESG) resources from Microsoft and our global ecosystem of partners. . Together, we are keeping sustainability at the heart of our offerings and looking to empower organizations to adopt more regenerative and sustainable farming practices.
Learn more and transform your operations today
If you are interested in using Azure Data Manager for Agriculture for your company, please apply here or learn more at Azure Data Manager for Agriculture website. Azure Data Manager for Agriculture requires registration and is currently only available to approved customers and partners during the preview period.
