John Deere and SpaceX's Starlink team up to equip tractors with satellite internet, in a deal Elon Musk calls 'great for farmers'

John Deere equipment at a dealership in Taylor, Texas. Mohammad Khursheed/Reuters

Elon Musk and SpaceX set out to blanket the world with high-speed internet using thousands of Starlink satellites. Now, John Deere wants to get its rural clients into the network.

The tractor titan and satellite giant have signed a deal to connect tractors and other farming equipment to the internet, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The companies plan to start adding Starlink to new and existing Deere machines across the US and Brazil later this year.

“This will be great for farmers,” Musk wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Elon Musk laughs during an in-conversation event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London. Kirsty Wigglesworth/Reuters

About 30% of acres farmed in the US, and about 70% in Brazil, don’t have sufficient internet connectivity, according to The Wall Street Journal report.

That means they can’t fully embrace the digital agriculture technologies John Deere has been developing, which allow farmers to remotely monitor and troubleshoot their equipment and gather precise data on their crops and soil.

It’s not yet clear how much the Starlink service will cost farmers.

SpaceX uses Falcon 9 rockets to transport batches of around 60 Starlink satellites at a time. Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

John Deere tested different satellite options for about eight months, according to The Wall Street Journal report.

With Starlink, “we never had any problems in the areas we went to,” JC Schemper, a Nebraska business owner who tested the service on two of his combines, told The Wall Street Journal. “With the satellite, you’re always connected whether you’re at the bottom of a hill or the top of a hill or 50 miles away.”

Farmers will have to install Starlink antennas, which will be designed for rugged and dusty terrain, on the tops of vehicle cabs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Starlink is ideal for rural locations,” the satellite company wrote on X.

John Deere tractors for sale at a dealer in Longmont, Colorado Rick Wilking/Reuters

Indeed, connecting the planet’s rural areas to the internet is the world-changing mission the company has pitched itself on. Partially to that end, the company has provided connectivity to Ukrainian troops and communities recovering from natural disasters.

Major early customers like John Deere will be crucial for Starlink to scale up. So far, the company has nearly 5,300 satellites in orbit. Musk has said he eventually wants 42,000, to the chagrin of astronomers and night-sky enthusiasts who argue the satellites are too bright.