Bosch and BASF smart farming joint venture gets global green light

• Official approval obtained from merger control authorities
• Experienced senior leadership team in place and new company set for growth
• Smart Spraying intelligence delivers precise weed identification and management

Stuttgart/Cologne, Germany, and Research Triangle Park, NC, June 29, 2021 – The 50/50 joint venture (JV) between Bosch and BASF Digital Farming to globally market and sell smart farming technologies from a single source has now received approval by all relevant merger control authorities. The JV has been registered as Bosch BASF Smart Farming (BBSF) GmbH.

A major milestone, BBSF has since set up its headquarters in Cologne, Germany and appointed experienced managing directors BASF’s Silvia Cifre Wibrow and Bosch’s Florian Gwosdz to jointly lead the company. The company will distribute its Smart Spraying solution, which Bosch and BASF are developing and testing, to initial markets in North America, South America and Europe. Its Intelligent Planting Solution is already commercially available in Brazil and Argentina, and will use the advanced digital agronomic intelligence of BASF’s xarvio™ crop optimization platform to enhance zone-based seeding recommendations in the near future in Brazil.

The Smart Spraying solution offers real-time, automated pre-emergence (“green-on-brown”) and post-emergence (“green-on-green”) weed identification and management day and night. Combining Bosch’s high-tech camera sensor technology and software with xarvio’s agronomic intelligence enables Smart Spraying in milliseconds to precisely detect weeds in crop rows and to spot apply herbicide only where needed. Its unique configuration supports a more efficient use of herbicide, with trials showing herbicide volume savings of 70% are achievable. Higher savings are also possible, with variability dependent on the prevailing field conditions and weed pressure of individual fields.

“We have reached another important milestone in receiving merger control approval and have made considerable progress in the past few months. We have established the new company together, built the new team and continued to test our products successfully under different climatic conditions with various manufacturers,” says Florian Gwosdz, joint Managing Director of Bosch BASF Smart Farming. “Our Smart Spraying Solution continues to return consistent, positive test results, which clearly shows the combination of our hardware, software and advanced agronomic logic delivers.”

“With Smart Spraying, we are bringing a new digital solution to market and new approach to weed management – a volume-optimization model that increases farm profitability through a more precise and efficient use of herbicide,” said Silvia Cifre Wibrow, joint Managing Director of Bosch BASF Smart Farming. “The unique ability for Smart Spraying to see, decide and spray based on agronomic intelligence is not just financially good for farmers, but it’s good for the environment, sustainability and biodiversity.”

Bosch BASF Smart Farming remains on-track to launch the Smart Spraying solution in limited numbers by the end of this year.

xarvio Digital Farming Solutions is at the forefront of the digital transformation of agriculture, optimizing crop production. xarvio offers digital products, based on a global leading crop model platform, which deliver independent, field-zone-specific agronomic advice that enables farmers to produce their crops most efficiently and sustainably. xarvio products SCOUTING, FIELD MANAGER and HEALTHY FIELDS are being used by farmers in more than 100 countries. xarvio FIELD MANAGER is used by 60,000 farmers (total area of more than 7 million ha) in 17 countries, and xarvio SCOUTING is used by more than 4 million farmers and consultants. For more information please visit www.xarvio.com or any of our social media channels.

With a rapidly growing population, the world is increasingly dependent on our ability to develop and maintain sustainable agriculture and healthy environments. Working with farmers, agricultural professionals, pest management experts and others, it is our role to help make this possible. That’s why we invest in a strong R&D pipeline and broad portfolio, including seeds and traits, chemical and biological crop protection, soil management, plant health, pest control and digital farming. With expert teams in the lab, field, office and in production, we connect innovative thinking and down-to-earth action to create real world ideas that work – for farmers, society and the planet. In 2020, our division generated sales of €7.7 billion. For more information, please visit www.agriculture.basf.com or any of our social media channels.

Mobility Solutions is the largest Bosch Group business sector. It generated sales of 42.1 billion euros in 2020, and thus contributed 59 percent of total sales from operations. This makes the Bosch Group one of the leading automotive suppliers. The Mobility Solutions business sector pursues a vision of mobility that is safe, sustainable, and exciting, and combines the group’s expertise in the domains of personalization, automation, electrification, and connectivity. For its customers, the outcome is integrated mobility solutions. The business sector’s main areas of activity are injection technology and powertrain peripherals for internal-combustion engines, diverse solutions for powertrain electrification, vehicle safety systems, driver-assistance and automated functions, technology for user-friendly infotainment as well as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, repair-shop concepts, and technology and services for the automotive aftermarket. Bosch is synonymous with important automotive innovations, such as electronic engine management, the ESP anti-skid system, and common-rail diesel technology.

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 395,000 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2020). The company generated sales of 71.5 billion euros in 2020. Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. As a leading IoT provider, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, Industry 4.0, and connected mobility. Bosch is pursuing a vision of mobility that is sustainable, safe, and exciting. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source.

The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to facilitate connected living with products and solutions that either contain artificial intelligence (AI) or have been developed or manufactured with its help. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is “Invented for life.” The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiary and regional companies in some 60 countries. Including sales and service partners, Bosch’s global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network covers nearly every country in the world.

With its more than 400 locations worldwide, the Bosch Group has been carbon neutral since the first quarter of 2020. The basis for the company’s future growth is its innovative strength.
At 129 locations across the globe, Bosch employs some 73,000 associates in research and development, of which nearly 34,000 are software engineers.

Additional information is available online at www.bosch.com, www.iot.bosch.com, www.bosch-press.com, https://twitter.com/BoschPress