Trimble announced will acquire the assets of privately held Agri-Trend of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, which operates the largest network of independent agricultural consultants in North America.

The acquisition will enable Trimble to provide agronomists and other crop advisors with a stronger set of brand-agnostic tools they can use to advise growers on how to better manage their operations. The combination of Agri-Trend's experience in agronomy, grain marketing, farm business and data management together with Trimble's experience in precision agriculture will further empower growers to gain efficiencies throughout the entire farming cycle.

The acquisition is expected to close in November 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Agri-Trend's network of over 200 specialists spread throughout the U.S. and Canada includes over 110 independent "coaches" specializing in agronomy, precision farming, crop marketing and farm business management.

Coaches are supported by a team of science specialists comprised of over 30 Ph.D.'s and M.Sc.'s providing in-house research, training and insight support for both the coaching network and the Agri-Data Solution platform — a proprietary farm data management solution. As a result, Agri-Trend's solutions enable growers to make informed business decisions that better allocate scarce resources to produce safe and environmentally sustainable food.

"Trimble's acquisition of Agri-Trend is another step towards total farm management for the grower. Together with Connected Farm, we will provide growers and their trusted advisors with a combined offering that is unique in the marketplace today," said Joe Denniston, vice president for Trimble's Agriculture Division. "Agri-Trend is a leader in providing expert advice and decision support for growing crops, marketing commodities and managing a farm's finances. Trimble is a leader in precision agriculture technology that precisely applies those decisions whether it is seed, nutrients or water. Together, Trimble and Agri-Trend will enable the integration of decisions and execution to give greater control over the outcome, resulting in maximized productivity for the grower."

"Agri-Trend has been working side by side with farmers for over 17 years. With the strength that Trimble provides, we aim to help even more farmers as the move to precision agriculture continues to gain momentum globally," said Rob Saik, founder of Agri-Trend. "The combination of our advanced agricultural technical expertise and Trimble's exceptional precision agriculture tools provides us with a platform that will support production practices that are sustainable both from an environmental and financial perspective for today's farmers. We're excited to be a part of the future of agriculture, and we're pleased to work with the great people at Trimble."

Full Farm Support

Grow the Crop: To assist in optimizing crop growth, Agri-Trend has a network of experienced agronomists who serve as a personal Agri-Coach to help farm customers assess the performance of every acre on a yearly basis. Agri-Coaches work on the analytics, looking at the cost of production as well as nitrogen and water use efficiency, interpreting the data and making customized recommendations for each field. Recommendations are then followed up with field scouting and performance tracking to ensure farm goals are met.

Sell the Crop: To maximize crop sales, Agri-Trend creates a Strategic Marketing Plan that includes business analysis, operational strategy, risk management and a harvest review. This customized plan is developed by an Agri-Trend Market-Coach who works closely with each farm client to understand the unique situation of their farm and the cost of production for each field. The Agri-Trend Market-Coach then provides advice on how to best achieve better selling prices, risk mitigation and optimal cash flow for their farm customers.

Manage the Money: In order to enable farmers to better manage their money, Agri-Trend provides a network of Business-Coach Professionals, which consists of experts in specialized areas such as accounting, banking, corporate finance and insurance. The Business-Coach starts by gaining an understanding of the farm business including strengths and weaknesses, measuring the farm's performance against benchmarks, creating the Strategic Farm Business Plan and then implementing the farmer's long-term growth plan.

The Agri-Data Solution

The Agri-Data Solution is a complete farm management platform that focuses on the unique agronomic challenges that farmers face every year as they work to maximize yields and profits. This platform is the foundation for Agri-Trend advisors as they work on crop planning, crop input tracking, soil sampling, tissue testing, manure analysis, fertilizer blending, field scouting, harvest data tracking and more. The platform supports over 75,000,000 legacy acres with over eight million acres added in 2015. Farmers have also adopted the Agri-Data mobile applications for both Android and iOS devices, preferring to work with their information on the go. For more information, visit: www.AgriDataSolution.com. 

Trimble Connected Farm Advisor

Trimble Connected Farm Advisor — a field data management tool for the farmer's trusted advisor — will be integrated with the Agri-Data platform to empower Agri-Trend coaches with a greater toolset to deliver more services to their growers.