It’s not very often that the investment media or advisors mention much about main street agriculture companies, outside of the industry titans. Well, Trimble (also in engineering and construction markets) got a mention yesterday from a writer with the popular “The Motley Fool” investment advisory folks.

The writer did call precision agriculture “a budding field” which raises my eyebrows about his agriculture savvy. But irregardless, he recommends to investors they “should monitor Trimble (Nasdaq: TRMB) with great interest.”

I first became aware of Trimble when I started researching precision agriculture. This budding field involves the application of positioning technologies like GPS to farming. Trimble’s positioning solutions — which extend to construction, transportation, and other industries — are backed by over 900 patents. That intellectual property portfolio should support the company’s competitive position relative to other precision ag players likeRaven Industries (Nasdaq: RAVN) and privately held Ag Leader.

Demand for Trimble’s wares got socked this year along with other agricultural equipment suppliers like Lindsay(NYSE: LNN) and AGCO (NYSE: AGCO). The long-term outlook for this sector, especially in emerging markets like China, is nevertheless very strong.

And here’s the rest of the story.