Deere Invests in Software to Boost Machinery

"For decades, Deere & Co. has dominated the hardware that powers the American farm industry with tractors, harvesters and other machinery used to plant seeds and reap crops.

Now, Deere aims to extend its dominance to software to make those machines -- and agriculture -- more efficient and productive.

The company this year is rolling out self-driving tractors that can plow fields by themselves, and sprayers that distinguish weeds from crops. Deere, which helped make satellite-guided tractors ubiquitous in the U.S. Farm Belt over the past 20 years, is investing billions of dollars to develop smarter machines that the company said will make farming faster and more efficient than it ever could be with just farmers behind the wheel.

"It's all about doing more with less," said John May, Deere's chief executive. By the end of the decade, Mr. May projects that 10% of Deere's annual revenue will come from fees for using software.

Deere's equipment rivals, CNH Industrial NV and Agco Corp., agribusinesses such as Bayer AG and Corteva Inc., and venture-capital investors have collectively invested billions of dollars to buy and build systems for predicting crop performance and lowering farmers' costs with more precise operations.

Despite that investment, some startups have struggled to break into the agriculture industry, and big companies have yet to turn significant profits from their technology investments, analysts have said. Widespread use of software subscriptions for operating equipment hasn't been tried before in the farm industry.

While farmers have said they are open to test-driving new technology, many are struggling with the cost of necessities including fertilizer and fuel, which have surged in price over the past year.

Moline, Ill.-based Deere, which generated $44 billion in sales in 2021, sells around 60% of the high-horsepower tractors used in the U.S. and Canada. Deere has been guiding farmers toward a bigger leap into technology for almost 20 years, starting with an autopilot system on tractors and harvesters that is now a standard feature on nearly all Deere's large farm machinery.

By 2026, Deere wants to connect 1.5 million machines in service and a half billion acres in use to its cloud-based John Deere Operations Center, which will collect and store crop data, including millions of images of weeds that can be targeted by herbicide. Deere last year acquired California-based startup Bear Flag Robotics for $250 million to provide software for turning older tractors into autonomous-capable vehicles.

Selling farmers subscriptions to the software is expected to yield higher profit margins than sales of Deere's signature green and yellow machinery, which will continue to make up the bulk of Deere sales. A 2021 report from Bernstein analysts estimated the average gross margin for farming software at 85%, compared with 25% for equipment sales.

Deere's technology expansion could deepen some farmers' distrust of the equipment maker. For years, some farmer organizations and consumer advocacy groups have accused Deere of using proprietary software on its equipment to restrict repair work to Deere's own dealers, which farmers said raises their costs and sometimes leaves equipment out of commission for weeks. Deere has said it provides tools and repair manuals enabling private repairs, but has pushed back against what it says are attempts by farmers to modify software that controls machinery operations.

Deere is betting it can lower farmers' anxiety by offering software as a service on an as-needed basis for specific jobs, such as tilling fields or applying fertilizer. Deere said it is considering charging a per-acre fee for fields where the software is deployed. The company hasn't yet released a fee schedule. Deere said it would be responsible for fixing any problems. Farmers would need to buy the newest crop sprayers to use the software.

Nebraska farmer Taylor Nelson said he uses an enhanced version of Deere's AutoTrac guidance system, which collects and shares information about the whereabouts and work being done by people operating machinery on his 12,000-acre farm. Mr. Nelson said the system has cut down on costly mistakes, such as spraying a field twice with fertilizer.

"You can use this technology to stick people in with less experience and still get optimal results," Mr. Nelson said." [1]

1.  Business News: Deere Invests in Software to Boost Machinery
Tita, Bob; Bunge, Jacob. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 12 Sep 2022: B.3.

Atsisakykime vakarėlių uždarose patalpose: dėl koronaviruso daugelis pasitraukia iš darbo jėgos

 

Tai ilgo Covid rezultatas. Šių žmonių gyvenimas sugriautas. Viršininkai, kurie verčia žmones sėdėti biuruose, turėtų būti paduoti į teismą ir atleisti iš darbo.

 

    „Dėl ligos, kurią sukėlė COVID-19, JAV darbo jėga sumažėjo maždaug 500 000 žmonių, o tai, tikėtina, išliks, jei virusas ir toliau užkrės darbuotojus tokiais tempais, kaip rodo pirmadienį paskelbtas naujas tyrimas.

 

    Milijonai žmonių paliko darbo jėgą – dirbančių ar ieškančių darbo žmonių skaičių – pandemijos metu dėl įvairių priežasčių, įskaitant išėjimą į pensiją, vaikų priežiūros stoką ir baimę užsikrėsti Covid. Bendras darbo jėgos dydis rugpjūtį pasiekė 164,7 mln. žmonių ir pirmą kartą viršijo 2020 m. vasario mėn. prepandemijos lygį. 

 

Pasak tyrimo autorių, ekonomistų Gopi Shah Godos iš Stanfordo universiteto ir Evano J. Soltaso iš Masačusetso technologijos instituto, darbo jėga turėtų 500 000 daugiau narių, jei ne Covidu susirgę žmonės.

 

    „Jei ir toliau liksime ten, kur esame su Covid užsikrėtimo rodikliais, manome, kad 500 000 žmonių netektume tol, kol sumažės apsikrėtimų arba ligos sunkumas“, – sakė p. Soltas. Daroma prielaida, kad kai kurie iš anksčiau sirgusių galiausiai grįžta į darbą.

 

    Autoriai „pateikia iki šiol patikimiausius įrodymus apie poveikį darbo rinkai daugeliui darbuotojų“, – sakė W.E. ekonomistas Aaronas Sojourneris iš Upjohn užimtumo tyrimų instituto, kuris tyrime nedalyvavo.

 

    Tyrimas, kuris dar nebuvo recenzuotas, buvo pagrįstas reprezentatyvia daugiau, nei 300 000 darbuotojų populiacija, kurią per 14 mėnesių stebėjo Census Bureau kasmėnesinis namų ūkių tyrimas. Analizė apėmė laikotarpį nuo 2010 m. sausio mėn. iki 2022 m. birželio mėn. Autoriai naudojo su sveikata susijusį savaitės nebuvimą darbe, kaip galimų Covid ligų indikatorių. Nuo 2020 m. kovo iki 2022 m. birželio mėn. vidutiniškai apie 10 darbuotojų tūkstančiui praleido savaitę darbo dėl sveikatos priežasčių, o per dešimtmetį prieš pandemiją – vidutiniškai šeši - tūkstančiui darbuotojų.

 

    Ekonomistai nustatė, kad žmonės, patyrę savaitės nebuvimą dėl savo sveikatos problemų, buvo maždaug 7 procentiniais punktais mažiau linkę įsijungti į darbo rinką po metų, nei panašūs darbuotojai, kurie dėl sveikatos nepraleido darbo.“ [1]

 1. U.S. News: Illness Causes Many To Exit Labor Force
Guilford, Gwynn. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 12 Sep 2022: A.3.

No More Indoor Parties: Covid Causes Many To Exit Labor Force

This is a result of long Covid. People's lifes are ruined. Bosses that force people to sit in offices should be sued and fired.

"Illness caused by Covid-19 shrank the U.S. labor force by around 500,000 people, a hit that is likely to persist if the virus continues to sicken workers at current rates, according to a new study released Monday.

Millions of people left the labor force -- the number of people working or looking for work -- during the pandemic for various reasons, including retirement, lack of child care and fear of Covid. The total size of the labor force reached 164.7 million people in August, exceeding the February 2020 prepandemic level for the first time. The labor force would have 500,000 more members if not for the people sickened by Covid, according to the study's authors, economists Gopi Shah Goda of Stanford University and Evan J. Soltas at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"If we stay where we are with Covid infection rates going forward, we expect that 500,000-person loss to persist until either exposure goes down or severity goes down," said Mr. Soltas. That assumes that some of those previously sickened eventually return to work.

The authors "provide the most-credible evidence to date about labor-market impacts for a large set of workers," said Aaron Sojourner, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, who wasn't involved in the study.

The study, which hasn't yet been peer-reviewed, was based on a representative population of more than 300,000 workers followed over 14 months in the Census Bureau's monthly household survey. The analysis covered the period from January 2010 to June 2022. The authors used health-related, weeklong absences as a proxy for probable Covid illnesses. From March 2020 to June 2022, about 10 workers per thousand missed a week of work due to health reasons, on average, up from six per thousand on average over the decade before the pandemic.

The economists found that people who experienced weeklong absences due to their own health problems were about 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later than similar workers who didn't miss work for health reasons." [1]

 1. U.S. News: Illness Causes Many To Exit Labor Force
Guilford, Gwynn. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 12 Sep 2022: A.3.