Rabobank sees a lot of potential for data-intensive farming.
The bank's latest report on the concept suggests it could easily add 10 billion dollars a year, American, to the value of field crop farming on a global scale.
But it cautions that's going to require fundamental changes to existing farming practices and the relationships between farmers, suppliers and customers.
Analyst Harry Smit says over time, the aggregation of data from many farmers will drive the development of even better agronomic decision that can be customised and automated.
Rabobank suggests the investment in data-intensive farming will be easiest for the type of large corporate farms most common to the U-S, South America and Australia.
However, Smit suggests medium and small-sized farms could get involved through relationships with their suppliers to leverage investments across farms or through direct cooperation with other farmers.
Rabobank says it's 10 billion dollar benefit estimate is based on a 5 per cent yield increase on 80 per cent of the area for the top seven crops produced in the world.
It suggests the actual number will be higher because of the potential benefits for smaller high-value crops and the livestock industry.
