Attendees of the recent International Conference on Precision Agriculture in Indianapolis, IN got the chance to see different groups and companies, even some competitors, work together for the common good of the agriculture industry through an organization known as AgGateway.

“AgGateway is an organization focused on enabling eCommerce in the agricultural industry, and it goes across trading partners broad and wide,” explained Jeff Kaiser the manager of Technology Integration for John Deere Financial. He added that includes genetics companies, those that provide crop protection and nutrition, and ag equipment. In an interview with Chuck, Kaiser said it works hand-on-hand with the Precision Ag Council formed just a couple of years ago. “The Precision Ag Council is the first council within AgGateway focused on sort of a horizontal nature that incorporates all the products farmers buy… the seed and genetics, the crop nutrition, even animal agriculture where feed and grain come into play.” The Precision Ag Council helps establish some data exchange standards, so producers with several different brands of equipment can have them all integrated.

Kaiser said they have been focusing on the basics for the first couple of years of the organization. In the future, they’ll be moving to how to exchange product descriptions. “What we’re trying to do is create a capability so electronically all the information about the product… so a farmer can better utilize the product [is made available].” Kaiser also pointed out that since AgGateway has companies collaborating within in it that are international in scope, that data needs to be able to be exchanged in a standardized way for the good of everyone. “This is in the industry’s best benefit… not just in any one commercial company’s best interests.

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Jeff here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/icpa/icpa-jd-kaiser.mp3″ text=”Interview with Jeff Kaiser, John Deere Financial, Manager, Technology Integration”]

11th International Conference on Precision Agriculture Photo Album