John Deere has, in conjunction with two universities and a Spanish food cooperative, developed another downloadable content (DLC) package for the online Farming Simulator game.

The tractor manufacturer is once again taking the message of how modern farming techniques can reduce the overall environmental impact of agriculture to those outside of the food production industry.

Updated techniques

In the second version of this popular game the DLC will focus on sustainability and will use modern technology to reduce the amount of herbicides, while the application of organic and mineral fertilisers will also be more accurate.

The new DLC revolves around the implementation of Precision Farming. It was created in cooperation with the University of Hohenheim, Germany, The University of Reading and Spanish agri-food cooperative Grupo AN.

Finance for the project has come from EIT Food, a European organisation dedicated to creating a more sustainable food production system, which is funded directly by the EU.

Precision farming by John deere
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The first DLC has been downloaded nearly one million times and feedback from the gaming community has been positive, according to John Deere.

John Deere enlarges the team

Following the success of the first release, John Deere started developing a new and extended DLC, again funded by EIT Food.

The existing partners were joined by the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research from the Polish Academy of Sciences, in order to include the farming community and young farmers from Eastern Europe.

Ready for Farming Simulator 22

The next Precision Farming DLC will be based on the new Farming Simulator 22 video game, which will be launched on November 22.

Gamers can avail themselves of many new features, in addition to the basics already available in the first version, which included soil sampling and variable rate application.

John deere and Precision Farming DLC
Accurate recording of crop parameters is vital to precision farming

These were presented as offering economic benefits for the farmer, the second version will take this further and focus on advanced precision farming technologies.

The new features will demonstrate how the sustainability of modern farming may be increased even further, with a much lower environmental footprint.

Camera technologies will be used to reduce the amount of herbicides used, and the application of organic and mineral fertilisers will be made more accurate with the use of modern sensors.