Video Transcript
Agriculture has long been on the leading edge of autonomous technology. The need to cover predictable routes in largely rural areas, coupled with the demand for maximizing both output and efficiency, has led many farmers to embrace the kinds of self-guided systems that have caught on more tepidly elsewhere.
Agricultural equipment makers have responded by developing tractors and other vehicles equipped with the latest in smart systems — but for those who don’t have a few hundred thousand dollars to plunk down on new state-of-the-art equipment in an era of falling commodity prices, a market has sprung up to meet their demands.
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled the companies and farms embracing the agricultural retrofit market, which allows farmers to add constantly evolving tech to equipment that can otherwise last for decades — at a fraction of the cost.
The add-on systems enable aging equipment to precisely steer, plant seeds, or spray weeds by themselves. They also help agricultural equipment makers further capitalize on a market in which less than 10% of operators replace their equipment in an average year.
Equipment manufacturers Agco and CNH have each spent billions to acquire ag tech companies in recent years, while market leader John Deere rolled out retrofit systems this year. The retrofit market across the ag sector, one analyst told the Journal, now stands at an estimated $150 billion.
