2017 December Newsletter

December 2017   Volume 11 Number 11


  • Thank you sponsors and attendees for a successful Annual Conference!
  • Mark your 2018 calendar: Mid-Year Meeting – June 11-14, Prairie Meadows, Altoona, Iowa; and Annual Conference – November 5-7, Sheraton Austin Hotel at The Capitol, Austin, Texas.
  • Have you seen the 2017 AgGateway Annual Report? Find a copy here.
  • Have you completed an implementation that’s helped your company? Use the new Case Study template to spread the word!
  • Need more information on implementing ADAPT? Check out the Application Notes.

 

eConnectivity Matters

AgGateway Accomplishments and Looking Forward

By Doug Farrington, Syngenta and 2018 Strategic Board Chair

[Excerpted from remarks made at the Annual Conference in November]

A lot of great work was done in 2017 – We are working on important ag issues! Here is just a partial summary of what was accomplished this year:

Ag Retail Council:  Published implementation and ROI case studies, successfully developed and presented a retailer forum at the Mid-Year Meeting.

Allied Providers Council: Invited guest speakers at each meeting and helped with participation in council meetings.

Crop Nutrition Council: Extending implementation in connectivity by aligning crop nutrition connectivity business rules with EDI messages. A working group to match up XML and X12 mapping has completed alignment of ship notice. Read more...


Annual Report

Annual Report and 5-Year Plan:  Enable Companies to Increase Efficiency, Agility and Profitability

By Susan Ruland, AgGateway Communications Director

The ability to efficiently manage and exchange data will be essential in equipping the agriculture industry to face economic, environmental, regulatory and marketing challenges in 2018 and beyond; and the work of AgGateway is central to that goal. That is the message in AgGateway’s newly released 2017 Annual Report, “AgGateway in Action”, and a message echoed by President and CEO Wendy Smith and Chairman Doug Mills at the Annual Conference last month.

“When we consider some of the top stories and challenges of our time – consolidation, the changing climate, uncertainty in government policies, the push for automation – it’s clear that data is the common thread that ties them all together,” said Smith. “In this environment we all need to be more efficient, more agile, and more creative – all things we are trying to facilitate through our work at AgGateway.” Read more...


Grain Traceability

AgGateway Teams Run Successful Grain Traceability Field Trial

An AgGateway press release

AgGateway teams working on standards for grain tracking ran a successful field trial last month on a corn farm in Olney, Ill., a major step forward in enabling the efficient tracking of harvested grain – from harvester to grain cart, grain cart to truck, truck to elevator, and elevator to processor. Details of the proof-of-concept were unveiled at last week’s AgGateway Annual Conference in San Diego. The new standards for data exchange will give grain producers and handlers more powerful data management capabilities to address traceability and the regulatory needs of the Food Safety Modernization Act. More than 25 companies have been working since 2015 on the collaborative effort, known as AgGateway’s CART project (Commodity Automation for Rail and Truck). Read more...


Open Source Technologies

AgGateway Participates in Purdue Agriculture’s OATS Center Pre-Launch

By Dr. James Krogmeier, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University

With support of agribusiness technology leaders like AgGateway, a university-based center to propel development and use of open-source technologies in agriculture is one step closer to reality. A “pre-launch” forum for Purdue’s Open Agricultural Technology and Systems (OATS) Center was held Nov. 17 in Rosemont, Ill., near Chicago. The event brought together 29 industry technology experts from 20 companies, including AgGateway representatives, to discuss priorities for future open-source development projects with 26 Purdue faculty, staff and graduate students from eight departments. Read more...

Leadership Awards

AgGateway Recognizes Leaders at 2017 Annual Conference 

An AgGateway press release

At its annual conference last week, AgGateway honored individuals and companies that are advancing electronic connectivity efforts in agriculture and related industries, thereby expanding the use of information to maximize efficiency and productivity.

Randy Fry, Data Process and Information Systems Manager with Ceres Solutions Cooperative, received AgGateway’s Ron Storms Leadership Award, the organization's top honor. The award recognizes repeated, outstanding efforts by an AgGateway volunteer member in promoting collaboration among AgGateway teams and advancing initiatives to enable eConnectivity. In presenting the award, former Ron Storms recipient Dennis Daggett of ProAg described Fry as a driving force and champion of the AgGateway mission, both inside and outside the organization. Read more...

Annual Conference

Thank you Annual Conference Sponsors!

AgGateway’s Annual Conference drew business and IT professionals from across the industry. AgGateway extends its thanks to the many generous conference sponsors, including:

Titanium Sponsors: AGDATA, Monsanto, F4F (Part of Proagrica). Read more...

Case Studies

Share a Success Using Our New, Easy Case Study Template!

By Susan Ruland, AgGateway Communications Director

Have you completed an implementation in the past few years that has helped your company? AgGateway has launched a case study program to catalogue these achievements. The more we can share specifics about the benefits of getting connected electronically, the more likely others are to join in and implement similar improvements.

Our new case studies – which are just 1 page (2-sided), provide a great topline of key points, especially targeted to describing the benefits of implementation to business executives in our member and prospective member companies. Read more...

Precision Ag

New Resources for Implementing the ADAPT Data Model

By Mark Stelford, Premier Crop, and ADAPT Oversight Committee Chair

The ADAPT Oversight Committee has posted a number of new resources this year to help developers get started with AgGateway’s ADAPT. On the ADAPT webpage you’ll find five “Application Notes” to help with implementation. The latest, just posted, is “Getting Started with AgGateway's ADAPT”Read more...

AGIIS Update

AGIIS Annual Maintenance Calendar of Events

By Chris Crutchfield, AgGateway Member Services

The Ag Industry Identification System (AGIIS) undergoes several maintenance activities beginning in December to help maintain the directory’s data quality and integrity. Below is a schedule of each of these activities, including significant changes from years past (in bold).

Historically, we run annual maintenance activities across two concurrent weekends in December. This year, we will apply Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS), National Change of Address (NCOA), Area Code Split, and City/State Review updates on Saturday, December 9, 2017. The annual de-duplication process, usually completed the weekend after annual maintenance, will not take place until February 16, 2018, allowing us to leverage a name standardization API within the annual de-duplication process that is currently in development. A communication will be sent to AGIIS subscribers one week ahead of each scheduled maintenance activity listed below. Read more...

 

AgGateway Global Network

Busy Days for AgGateway Global Network

By Jim Wilson, President & CEO, AgGateway Global Network

Here’s a brief update on some recent activities that reflect the growing interest around the world in the collaborative work that AgGateway facilitates for eConnectivity.

  • Europe: AgGateway Europe held a meeting in Archamps, France 19-20 October. Agrobase-Logigram hosted the meeting and did a wonderful job. The hospitality lived up to the high standard set by F4F, 365FarmNet, BASF, direkt gruppe, and Bayer in past meetings. The participants focused on the challenges of globally managing reference data and as well as promoting interoperability among devices and systems that manage and analyze farm data. The participants also heard presentations from leaders of various global traceability initiatives, including Fritz Schuster from Agrobase-Logigram, Pierre-Yves Busschaert from UIPP, Uli Heindl from Global Traceability Solutions GmbH, Friedrich Laubscher from Bayer Crop, Paul Brune from BASF, Gaelle Cheruy Pottiau from Agro EDI Europe, and Frans Van Diepen from the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. AgGateway Europe also attended Agritechnica in mid-November to share work that has been completed. Read more...

AgGateway in the News

AgGateway in the News

We’ve been getting some great coverage in the media – take a look!

AgGateway Grain Transfer Proof of Concept Shows Promise — PrecisionAg, Nov 10, 2017 — Besides the physical tracking of grain unloading events, the POC spans three data standards — ISO 11783 and AgGateway's own AgXML and ADAPT, and the process captures data across three data layers (geo-referenced time stamp, source container ID and target container ID) on each unload event it ...

AgGateway Releases Annual Report and 5 Year Plan — Precision Farming Dealer, Nov 20, 2017 The ability to efficiently manage and exchange data will be essential in equipping the agriculture industry to face economic, environmental, regulatory and marketing challenges in 2018 and beyond; and the work of AgGateway is central to that goal. That is the message in ...

AgGateway Recognizes Leaders at 2017 Annual Conference PrecisionAg, Nov 16, 2017 At its annual conference last week, AgGateway honored individuals and companies that are advancing electronic connectivity efforts in agriculture and related industries, thereby expanding the use of information to maximize efficiency and productivity. Randy Fry, Data Process and Information Systems ...

AgGateway teams run successful grain traceability field trial — Farm Forum, Nov 13, 2017 AgGateway teams working on standards for grain tracking ran a successful field trial last month on a corn farm in Olney, Ill., a major step forward in enabling the efficient tracking of harvested grain — from harvester to grain cart, grain cart to truck, truck to elevator, and elevator to ...

Precision Ag Bytes — AgWired, Nov 22, 2017 The 2017 President's Award went to Jeremy W. Wilson with Crop IMS. AgGateway also shared its newly released 2017 Annual Report, entitled “AgGateway in Action” at the annual conference. The report outlines a new 5-year strategic plan to address challenges in digital agriculture and using information.

Will Open-Source Finally Unlock Ag Technology's Potential? — PrecisionAg, Nov 28, 2017 Purdue will do its part beginning January 2018 when it formally opens the Open Ag Technology and Systems Center (OATS), bolstered by a three-year grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture with additional funds provided by Purdue and partners ADM, AgGateway, WinField United, and ...

Precision Ag Bytes — AgWired,Nov 15, 2017 AgGateway teams working on standards for grain tracking ran a successful field trial last month on a corn farm in Olney, Ill., a major step forward in enabling the efficient tracking of harvested grain from harvester to grain cart, grain cart to truck, truck to elevator, and elevator to processor. Details of the ...

Agritechnica 2017: 5 Quick Takeaways from World's Top Farm Show — PrecisionAg,  Nov 21, 2017 365FarmNet.com had a busy week, also announcing adoption of the AgGatewayADAPT data standard, as well as cross-compliance reporting with YARA, both of which will help its users streamline the documentation/track and trace processes becoming more and more implicit in producing edible crops for ...

Precision Farming Market Size and Development Strategy 2017 — openPR, Nov 8, 2017 — The prominent players identified in the market of Precision Farming are- AGCO Corporation (U.S.), Deere & Company (U.S.), AG Leader Technology (U.S.), AgEagle Aerial Systems (U.S.), Aglytix Inc. (U.S.), AgGateway (U.S.), Precision Planting (U.S.), AgJunction Inc. (U.S.), Agribotix (U.S.), Dickey-John ...