Bosch and BASF Digital Agriculture Joint Venture Gets Green Light Globally

Smart Spraying intelligence provides accurate identification for weed management

Stuttgart/Cologne, Germany - June 29, 2021 - The joint venture (JV) between Bosch and BASF Digital Farming to globally distribute and commercialize smart agricultural technologies has received approval from all relevant merger control authorities. The JV was registered as Bosch BASF Smart Farming (BBSF) GmbH, in a 50/50 split.

This is an important milestone since Bosch BASF Smart Farming established its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, and appointed CEOs Silvia Cifre Wibrow and Florian Gwosdz, from BASF and Bosch respectively, to jointly run the company. BBSF will distribute its Smart Spray Solution, which Bosch and BASF are developing and testing, initially to the North American, South American and European markets. The Smart Planting Solution is now commercially available in Brazil and Argentina, using the advanced digital agronomic intelligence of xarvio™, from BASF, to optimize crops, increase seeding by zone and fertilizer recommendations.

Smart Setup

Smart Spraying aims to perform automated weed management in real time and only where necessary, in real time. In pre-emergence, the technology identifies "green over brown" and in post-emergence, "green over green", regardless of whether it is day or night. By combining Bosch's high-tech camera sensor and software with xarvio™ agronomic intelligence, the tool can accurately detect weeds in milliseconds and apply herbicide only where needed. Its unique configuration provides support to make herbicide use more efficient, with tests showing input optimization of approximately 70%. This number may be higher depending on crop conditions and weed pressure in the plots.

Sustainability and biodiversity

"We have reached another important milestone with the approval of the joint venture by merger control authorities, in addition to considerable progress in recent months. We have built the new company together, assembled the new team and continued to successfully test our products on our customers using machinery from different manufacturers and under different climatic conditions and regions", commented Florian Gwosdz, executive director of BBSF. "Our Smart Spraying Solution has shown consistent and positive test results, clearly showing that the combination of our hardware and software with advanced agronomic logic is positive and an expertise of xarvio™, inclusive."

"With Smart Spraying, we are bringing a new digital solution to the market and a new approach to weed management - a herbicide volume optimization model that increases farm profitability through more precise and efficient use of the pesticide agriculture," said Silvia Cifre Wibrow, executive director of BBSF. "Smart Spraying's unique ability to visualize, decide and spray, guided by agronomic intelligence, contributes to environmental and business sustainability for farmers."

Bosch BASF Smart Farming is preparing the pre-launch of Smart Spraying by the end of this year.

About BASF Digital Farming GmbH

BASF Digital Farming is at the forefront of the digital transformation of agriculture, optimizing agricultural production. It is the xarvio™ Digital Farming Solutions brand that offers digital products based on a leading crop modeling platform, which offers independent agronomic consultancy specific to the field zone, enabling farmers to produce more efficiently and sustainably. xarvio™ SCOUTING, FIELD MANAGER and HEALTHY FIELDS products are being used by farmers in more than 100 countries. xarvio™ FIELD MANAGER is used by 60.000 farmers (total area over 7 million ha) in 17 countries, and xarvio SCOUTING is used by over 4 million farmers and consultants.