Monsanto has made the first move toward building a centralized and open digital platform for farmers to access agronomic data and analysis from a range of providers through its subsidiary The Climate Corp.

A report by AgFunder News says, much as Apple opened up the iPhone to independent application providers, Monsanto wants to provide a hub for all agtech providers to essentially sell their wares while simultaneously capturing their data and integrating it into the FieldView platform. According to AgFunder, the integrated platform will give farmers the ability to track their operations from several different angles, from soil moisture sensing to satellite imagery to weather data, to better make predictions and decisions on how their operations are faring.

The plan is expected to take several months or years to fully come to fruition.

A new partnership between Monsanto and Veris Technologies is a first step toward building an in-field sensor net