American giant John Deere has parted with a hefty $250m (£179m) to acquire autonomous tractor start-up Bear Flag Robotics, based in Silicon Valley.

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The purchase further signals Deere’s intent to become a big player in the robotics world after it brought Californian tech company Blue River back in 2017. However, the acquisition of Bear Flag means the short-term focus will be retrofitting onto existing machinery, rather than building products from scratch.

Founded in 2017, Bear Flag Robotics specialises in autonomous driving technology that is compatible with existing machines.

This isn’t the first time JD and Bear Flag have worked together.

As part of Deere’s Startup Collaborator programme, Bear Flag’s autonomous platform was put to work on a limited number of US farms. The word from the two companies is that this solution will be rolled out to JD’s fleet as fast as possible to help solve labour shortages worldwide.