CrescoAg Corp. and Raytheon Co. have entered into an exclusive agreement to develop a new generation of agricultural technologies and analytics designed to help agriculture producers increase productivity and manage their operations more efficiently.

The CrescoAg-Raytheon collaboration will pair Raytheon’s demonstrated capabilities in engineering, climatic science, analytics, sensor technology and systems integration with CrescoAg’s agricultural domain knowledge, farming expertise and relationships within the network of crop input retailers and advisors. Utilizing mobile and advanced cloud computing, the CrescoAg-Raytheon collaboration will deliver information products and technologies that will help agronomic advisors support growers in their efforts to increase efficiency, productivity, profitability and crop sustainability.

“Raytheon has made major investments in research and development in analytics, climate science and Big Data computing  for our customers in the defense and Intelligence Communities that have applications in farming and the agriculture community,” said Bill Jones, vice president for Systems Modernization and Sustainment at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “For example, historical trends combined with real-time local weather will be available on smart devices, allowing farmers to make cropping, planting and harvesting decisions and, at the same time, inform decisions on which investments to make in other equipment such as irrigation and drainage technologies. ” 

“We are thrilled to partner with Raytheon scientists and engineers to develop what we believe will be the most advanced precision agriculture and analytical tools that the industry has seen,” said Barry Knight, president of CrescoAg.  “U.S. farmers are already adopting precision ag technologies at a record pace. This collaboration will provide them and their trusted advisors with new ways to combine farmers’ crop production activities with innovative climatic, remote sensing and analytical technologies.”

Headquartered in Memphis, CrescoAg provides geospatial data management, data analysis, and precision agriculture services to agricultural retailers, crop advisors and companies across the United States. The company is committed to further expanding its analytical footprint into both domestic and international regions of agricultural importance. 

Knight notes that CrescoAg is already collaborating with Raytheon on product concepts that will be tested during the 2014 growing season, with a goal of offering step-change improvements in how producers and their trusted agronomic advisors examine the contribution of seed, tillage practices and other agricultural inputs to their operations.