Building a Plan for Long-Term Success

From the President

Building a Plan for Long-Term Success

By Brent Kemp, President and CEO

CREATE, ENGAGE, and GROW is the theme that has guided AgGateway for the past five years as we worked through the consolidation of regional organizations into the current international structure. During this time we initiated more than 30 working groups, and delivered a wide range of resources, from the Product Catalog and In-Field Product ID messages to mix ticket and dispensing work. We also released ADAPT Standard Version 1 last June, and anticipate releasing version 2 next month.

The work we’ve done, and the work currently on the schedule, has brought together more than 100 member volunteers and stakeholders together to plan, develop, and implement tools that build efficiencies for the industry. This growth in activities and participation has also served to increase our financial capacity to support our important work.

Currently, we are building the next five-year plan that will commence in 2026. We don’t anticipate changes to our mission — developing the resources and relationships that drive agriculture — or to the structure of the organization. As we build the framework for our next five years, I want to share a few of the ideas the board and the planning team are exploring. We’ll cover all of it in more detail at the Mid-Year Meeting in Altoona, Iowa, USA, in June.

Promoting agriculture standards is part of the five-year roadmap, and education and promoting awareness of data exchange standards and solutions in agriculture is part of the mission of AgGateway. Myriad initiatives – commercial, regulatory, and international – seek to channel enthusiasm for standards, tools, or implementation requirements. In a time of uncertainty and change, the temptation may be to wait and see which if any of these emerges as a leader. AgGateway is well suited to help members identify important or impactful initiatives.

AgGateway is also well positioned to promote the standards, guidelines, and other connectivity resources you have developed and implemented. Groups such as ISO’s TC 347 on Data-driven Agrifood Systems organize working groups to address topics like land use history and “field passport” data, deriving actionable insights from field operations data, and developing standards for tagging agricultural data to optimize its use in AI implementation.

Your participation in AgGateway enables you to not only learn more about these and other initiatives, but also to ensure your investments in standards-based connectivity solutions are part of the larger interoperability work taking place globally.

We are also considering how we can contribute to the development of your employees in their interaction with AgGateway and its resources. A few of the seminars being considered include:

  • Developing programs around AGIIS and unique identification
  • Helping new employees understand and develop to standards
  • Revisiting the facilitation and leadership training piloted two years ago
  • Coding workshops to improve understanding of tools like Modus and ADAPT

AgGateway is a valuable source of networking for your personnel, and we believe adding professional education will also build skills that will be valuable within your company.

The planning process isn’t complete, and we welcome feedback on the ideas shared above. If you have an idea for awareness building or education that you’d like to share, please drop me a line. AgGateway is your organization. Let’s set you up well for the next five years.