AgGateway has created two new committees to formalize the ongoing work of its member companies: the Data Privacy and Security Committee; and the Architecture Committee. Both committees tackle essential issues that support AgGateway’s mission to promote, expand and enable eBusiness in agriculture. They will meet in open sessions at the upcoming Mid-Year Meeting in Iowa.

“Data privacy, use and security are key issues for farmers today, especially as they create and use an increasing amount of data to better manage their operations,” said Deb Casurella, president of Independent Data Management LLC and chair of the Data Privacy and Security Committee. “AgGateway is looking to adopt data security and producer privacy standards to enable eBusiness while protecting the value of a farmer’s information.”

The committee will soon publish a white paper that examines the historical, legal and regulatory perspectives on data privacy and security, provides key terminology and principles, and in general gives a roadmap of how to proceed in establishing security, protection and privacy standards and procedures.

The Architecture Committee, chaired by Brent Kemp, manager of process development-eBusiness at Southern States Cooperative Inc., will examine the big picture of how AgGateway and its members are executing the mission to enable and expand the use of eBusiness.

“In the past, decisions about technologies and best practices for implementing AgGateway Open Standards have been made by individual AgGateway project teams,” said Kemp. “With rapidly changing technology options, more types of standards and guidelines, and cross-industry and standards group collaboration requirements, it’s important for AgGateway to proceed in a more formal and consistent manner on these issues.”