Smart Tech
CNH Industrial: From Ag Machinery Roots to Smart Tech Revolution
Editor’s Note: As we mark the first 25 years of the 21st century, CropLife reflects on the innovations, challenges, and transformations that have shaped ag retail — honoring our past while looking ahead to agriculture’s promising future. In this article, we spotlight CNH’s evolution over the past quarter-century and examine what the future holds for this global equipment leader.
As a company, CNH Industrial can trace its origins back to 2012. However, many of the companies that make up this conglomerate date back hundreds of years, to the beginnings of U.S. and global agriculture itself.
One of the highest profile CNH agricultural companies is Case IH. At the start of the 21st century, this company – the combination of Case Corp. and International Harvester from 1984 – was in the midst of merging its agricultural equipment operations with New Holland N.V. Together, both companies were involved in several overlapping sectors of agricultural equipment making. This included tractors, combines, construction equipment, and self-propelled sprayers. The combined companies began doing business under the CNH Global name, although the long-standing brand names from the respective companies remained in place.
CNH Global spent the next several years of the late 2000s and early 2010s expanding and improving its brand offerings. This included introducing several improvements to the self-propelled sprayer markets with the introduction of the Case IH Patriot line of units, introducing a liquid/dry combo machine, the Case IH Trident 5550, and adding technology upgrades to the New Holland Guardian.
The company also continued to grow through acquisition. In 2014, CNH Industrial N.V. announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Miller-St. Nazianz, a manufacturer of precision spraying equipment based in St. Nazianz, WI. The assets of Miller acquired as part of the transaction became part of New Holland Agriculture.
“New Holland will bring Miller’s proven product portfolio directly into our family for further worldwide distribution which will expand crop production sales in the key markets of the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Eastern Europe and beyond,” said Carlo Lambro, then Brand President of New Holland Agriculture, of the acquisition.
Going Smart Tech
After acquiring Miller-St. Nazianz, CNH Industrial continued expanding its Smart Tech company mix. In late 2021, the company acquired Raven Industries, a maker of precision ag systems for all kinds of agricultural equipment, for $2.1 billion. According to CNH, one of the things that attracted the company to Raven was its Applied Technology Division, which focused on autonomous equipment.
“Raven is a true pioneer in the precision agriculture space, and their technology is a perfect strategic fit that will differentiate us from our peers and significantly improve our competitive position,” Scott Wine, then CEO at CNH Industrial, told CropLife in an interview. “This acquisition will add strong innovation capabilities to accelerate our precision and digital strategy.”
A few years later, in October 2023, CNH Industrial purchased Hemisphere GNSS. Based in Scottsdale, AZ, Hemisphere GNSS manufactures various pieces of Smart Tech-oriented products. This includes GNSS-based positioning systems, guidance and navigation products, and L-band GNSS corrections units.
At 2025 Commodity Classic, CNH Industrial announced plans to use Smart Tech in its 2026 Case IH sprayers called SenseApply.
“The SenseApply camera unit is a forward-looking, multi-spectral vision system that enables IntelliSense Sprayer Automation to continuously scan upcoming field conditions – 50 feet out in front of the sprayer – across the full width of the boom from a high vantage point atop the cab,” said Paul Welbig, Director of Precision Technology at New Holland. “The result is an expanded vision of the field that generates quicker and longer leading assessments. This allows the operator to drive and apply accurately at a faster speed than any other sense and act technology on the market today.”
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