Annual Conference Crunch Time

Portfolio Update

Annual Conference Crunch Time

By Ben Craker, Portfolio Manager

For anyone attending the North America Annual Conference that is interested in getting an update on AgGateway activities, here is fair warning – you will be busier than a one-legged man at a kickball tournament.

Six different working groups are poised to present their deliverables and wrap up. After reviewing what they have done, the vast majority will have a discussion on what needs to happen next in the area. That means 2025 is going to be very busy with new working groups spinning up in the first quarter. Here is a quick rundown of what will happen next week.

Modus: With the soil list and manure method lists in maintenance status now that they are both released in the version 2.0 format, focus is shifting to updating the plant method lists. A subset of the team has also joined the ADAPT Standard calls where Modus lab test data is the use case spearheading the addition of observations and measurements data into ADAPT. This will lead to the creation of the new V2.0 schema aligned with ADAPT Standard. Next year, we will be moving to the other method lists with feed, water, and microbiology high on the priority list.

PAIL, now the ISO 7673 family of standards also hit a significant milestone. The ballot deadline is early November for countries to vote and comment on the DIS (Draft International Standard) phase within ISO. With the expectation the ballot will pass but with comments, the team will be reviewing and addressing any concerns received in preparation for publication of the final ballot and eventual release of the international standard.

The Field Boundary working group proposed an enhancement to ADAPT to cover the “high fidelity” field boundary. This data model supports the transfer of high accuracy field boundaries among systems. The team also created some great documentation for best practices and terms and definitions related to field boundaries that will be a big help in improving the quality and understanding of what goes into creating field boundaries across the industry.

Dairy Feed Data completed its documentation of use cases and data elements and is now working with several other collaborating organizations to determine next steps. The building blocks are coming together to leverage the various resources to link field operations with feed through production of milk.

Data Ethics put out the first draft of the updated data privacy whitepaper for review and comment by AgGateway members. The team has put a lot of thought and effort into reviewing other sources and creating a great guide the industry will be able to leverage on legal and technical topics. The goal is to ensure system developers understand and plan for the range of privacy and security capabilities needed by the different stakeholders generating, sharing, and using data across the industry.

The Dealer Lookup working group is another quick hitter, only meeting a couple times to develop a message enhancement to quickly solve a problem in the industry. The new capability will allow retailers involved in stock transfers to accurately find the right entity and location to receive the transfer.

Entity ID is a topic that’s getting a lot of attention. The group has documented the process and is now working to develop implementation guidelines and business rules to address the very complex issue of finding the correct grower entity in tools like AGIIS. With all the different parties involved, the complexity of many farm business organizations, and growing importance of linking to the correct entity, this project will have a huge impact on the industry.

But that is not all – you’ll find several meetups and other discussions of interest at the Annual Meeting. These include updates to Mix Ticket, how PICS fits with STAC and what gaps exist in remote sensing data exchange, and a discussion of some of the new tooling that AgGateway is leveraging to support a harmonized contract message. There will also be some great discussions (and significant strides forward) on solving interoperability issues, along with some of the best networking opportunities in the industry. I look forward to seeing you there.

As usual if you have any questions on the activities of any of these working groups, an idea for a new group, or want to get engaged feel free to contact me (ben.craker@aggateway.org), or sign up for a working group here.