Hot on the heels of Agco’s $2bn (£1.64bn) plan to take control of Trimble’s agricultural precision farming assets comes news that CNH Industrial has bought global positioning specialist Hemisphere GNSS and invested in robotic fruit harvesting technology.

Hemisphere, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) business, has been bought for $175m (£143m) from a Chinese corporation.

It specialises in location and guidance technology for agriculture, construction, mining and marine applications, producing electronic systems, software, integrated circuit chips, radio frequency signal processing, navigation algorithms and satellite-based correction signal systems.

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Marc Kermisch, chief digital officer, explains that Hemisphere will continue to function as a standalone business with operations in the US, Canada and Australia, while bringing fresh talent and expertise to CNH’s technology vertical integration programme.

“From 2024 onwards, we will bring notable value to customers through significant advancements in our journey from automating certain tasks to fully autonomous operation,” he said.

“With Hemisphere’s expertise and network, we are accelerating our plans for automation technology, expedite delivery of a fully autonomous farming cycle, and extend and enhance automation and autonomy across a broad range of agriculture and construction applications.”

Further underpinning those goals is a minority investment in Advanced Farm Technologies, a California-based startup specialising in robotic harvesting of apples, strawberries and other fruits.

CNH calculates that hand-picking labour in the US accounts for 46% of apple production costs and 70% for strawberries, with labour becoming scarcer, and that shifting to robotic picking has potential to harvest high value crops up to five times more efficiently.