Trimble acquisition to help farmers reduce carbon footprint

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Trimble Navigation (Nasdaq:TRMB) said today it has acquired the assets of the private, Hamilton, Ind.-based CTN Data Service, which created the Farm Works software. The software offers office and mobile efficiencies for farmers and agriculture service professionals, while helping them reduce their carbon footprint.

Trimble's Erik Arvesen, vice president of Trimble's agriculture division, told the Cleantech Group the acquisition is expected to accelerate its information management capabilities, while offering its ag customers new farming operation abilities such as reducing energy and even fertilizer use. The company doesn't have much like Farm Works in its existing portfolio, he said. He added that this marks the company's fourth acquisition in the last nine months, all related to precision agriculture and environmental efficiencies. 

Trimble, which had $1.3 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2008, supplies advanced positioning products such as surveying, mapping and mobile resource management. These products help commercial and government users increase productivity, while reducing the use of extra or unnecessary materials and putting constraints on natural resources. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Bringing Farm Works and Trimble together allows us to integrate technologies and competencies to further enhance information management solutions for precision agriculture,” Arvesen said. “As we continue to expand our agricultural solutions, it is important that we help farmers take full advantage of the available data to improve yield and productivity as well as reduce their carbon footprint.”

The Farm Works software was developed by CTN Data Service’s President Norman Teegardin, a former farmer. The company has subsidiary offices in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The software works with a wide range of file formats and hardware used by the ag equipment industry. It comes in 20 languages and has more than 30,000 global users.

The Farm Works software can automatically capture field event data, downloaded from an in-cab display or handheld computer, for record keeping. The software has the ability to track farm operations such as vehicle monitoring, crop management, staffing, field mapping, chemical and fertilizer management, and cost accounting.

Arvesen said the software is expected to allow data to be moved seamlessly into a farmer's records for subsequent planting periods, so they potentially reduce the use of fertilizers and energy. 

"It's really making the farmer's life easier to manage his or her operation and to use chemicals more efficiently," he said. 

He said Trimble plans to maintain the well-established Farm Works brand name, and the acquired company will be operated as a separate entity within Trimble. No layoffs are anticipated. 

The company's other recent acquisitions include Tru Count and Rawson Control Systems, both based in Iowa, and California-based NTech Industries.

TruCount makes a planting system that allows certain rows of a crop to be automatically shut off, based on GPS, he said. Rawson has a product that controls the rate at which seeds come out of a planter. And NTech has a technology that uses advanced optics and computer circuitry to determine the health of a plant and then apply fertilizer optimally, Arvesen said. 

Ag efficiencies are an area being pursued by others companies including Liberty, Mo.-based TerraManus Technologies. The company has a ground tilling device that helps to address soil erosion, water flow management and related environmental problems, while increasing crop yields and reducing input costs to farmers (see Ag company boosts yields without chemistry).

With the TerraManus system, farmers have been able to reduce water and fertilizer needs by 10 percent to 30 percent. And increased crop yields have been as much as 42 percent for tomatoes and 12 percent for corn, for which demand has been steadily growing in recent years (see American farmers plan to plant more corn this year).

It's also an area the U.S. government is making a priority. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $35 million in grants and loans guarantees for cleantech projects across the country related to renewable energy systems or that improve energy efficiencies in farm and business operations (see USDA hands out $35M for cleantech projects).