Ryan Nicol
U.S. Sugar is pushing to stay on the cutting edge of new tech improvements in farming per a partnership with the Everglades Equipment Group.
U.S. Sugar utilizes John Deere machinery and technology to help those machines perform optimally. Everglades Equipment Group, which serves as a John Deere dealership in Central and South Florida, will work to ensure U.S. Sugar has the latest tech available as operations evolve.
“Our Company is rooted in innovation, dating back to our founder Charles Stewart Mott’s groundbreaking vision to make U.S. Sugar one of the most technologically advanced farming companies in the world,” said U.S. Sugar President and CEO Ken McDuffie.
“Through our work with John Deere and Everglades Equipment Group, we are continuing to push the limits of American innovation to produce food in a more economic and sustainable way. This partnership harnesses the very best precision agriculture technology currently available in American agriculture today.”
In a video spotlighting the new partnership, representatives from both U.S. Sugar and Everglades Equipment Group laid out the benefits going forward.
“We use the very best precision agriculture technology available in America,” said Scott Berden, Precision Ag Manager for U.S. Sugar.
“Rather than doing something on a thousand-acre scale, you try to get the information down to the smallest piece that you can manage. So we take the data as it’s captured and look at it after the fact to make better decisions going forward for your next crop, for example.”
Everglades Equipment Group has worked in the past to provide U.S. Sugar with new equipment, and this arrangement will strengthen their relationship.
“Since 1963, Everglades Equipment Group has been helping Florida farmers utilize cutting-edge John Deere equipment and highly trained service,” said Mike Schlecter, CEO of Everglades Equipment Group, in a prepared statement.
“One of our most trusted and loyal customers has been U.S. Sugar, which is currently utilizing our advanced technology across its farmlands, which in turn helps John Deere scale our technology solutions for other customers around the world.”
The latest partnership will include use of JDLink technology to connect equipment to John Deere’s cloud-based software.
“It gives machine data. It gives location. It gives the health of the machine,” said Brad Rucks of Everglades Equipment Group.
The T3rra Cutta landforming software utilizes drones to help farmers strategize to maximize output.
“It gives the ability to survey fields for their elevation. Once they see the problem areas, then they can create a design to fix those, and then they can run a simulator to show them how their design works. And then they can implement it, they can put it in the tractor,” Rucks said.
Per the partnership, Everglades Equipment Group will also provide U.S. Sugar with multisection dry fertilizer applicators, Smart Clean technology to reduce fuel consumption, and more.
“All this advanced technology, and the partnership between U.S. Sugar and the Everglades Equipment Group, is improving operations on the ground for the Glades-area farmers and making them smarter and more efficient,” Berden said.
And Rucks said that by working with a large operation like U.S. Sugar, smaller farms can benefit as well.
“One thing I’ve seen working with U.S. Sugar is because of their scale, they see problems sooner,” Rucks said. “Customers that may not have as much equipment, they don’t run into that problem until they get deeper into the technology. It helps us help our other customers know what’s coming.”
