John Deere is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of farm and agriculture products. It is already supplying farmers with automated solutions for some of their tractors and harvesters and using conventional terrestrial cellular connectivity.

Back in January, John Deere announced an upgrade to its automation options and using Starlink as the key element in its farm management systems. John Deere says that it already has customers in the US and Brazil using a “ruggedised” version of the Starlink terminal under Deere’s early access test programme.

Reportedly the farmers are using the equipment during this year’s harvest period. Brazilian users say that the experience exceeded all expectations, and permitted the farmers to monitor activity on their agricultural equipment via mobile phones, and to track their vehicle’s logistics and remote access to the vehicle’s cabs while being absent from the fields.

Brazil, notwithstanding the current problems that Elon Musk is having with the nation over his X service, is a key target market for John Deere’s Starlink system because of the remoteness of the farms and non-existent cellular coverage.

John Deere is to increase production of its Starlink-based equipment starting this coming November. It is aiming to have all of its tractors and farm-related equipment automated by 2030.

The market in the agricultural sector (the Global Cellular Agriculture Market from Straits Research) is going to explode from $176 billion in 2023 to an estimated $786 billion by 2033. Much of this will be handled by conventional cellular services, but satellite has a role to play.

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Categories: Articles, Broadband, Satellite

Tags: john deere, starlink