What is the Agri-eBusiness Group Inc.?
A collaborative initiative and independent company designed by four of the leading Ontario commodity organizations
to bring the agri-food industry together in an electronic business community.
Who are the founding members?
Founded in April 2000 by the Agricultural Commodity Corporation, the Ontario Corn Producers' Association, the Ontario
Soybean Growers and the Ontario Wheat Producers' Marketing Board.
Why was Agri-eBusiness Group Inc. formed?
To initiate an independent business organization to pursue a shared business resource development environment through
electronic data interchange.
How will the benefits be achieved?
The concept is for commodity organizations to reduce redundancy in information systems. Quite simply - a single
electronic method for country elevators to submit sales and marketing information to commodity organizations.
When will the producers and industry members see beneficial
results?
The investment will bring together grain and oilseed organizations with common producer identifier numbers by December
1, 2001. The goal is to have at least 90% by volume of commercial sales and loan repayments transmitted through
the system by June 1, 2002 with added services based on industry need over the next 2-3 years.
What are the benefits to commodity organizations?
The
Agri-eBusiness Group will allow organizations to share in the lower costs of data
information systems and control the future of electronic commerce for their producer
memberships.
What are the benefits to producers?
Though the use of a common producer number, the system will eliminate multiple mailings where they are not required.
The increased speed of collecting sales information will provide more timely average weighted pricing information
for Market Revenue Insurance calculations.
In the future, producers could have on-line access to track individual tickets, monitor individual loan status
and marketing, monitor field production data and identity preserved crops.
Background
In 1999, the commodity groups pledged matching funds and secured grant financing through the Province of Ontario
Rural Jobs Strategy program. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs clearly recognized the
potential value of this project and strategically invested into it. The project steering committee selected SNS
Assure (now BCE Emergis), a world leader in communications and software application, to design and develop the
software application.
The electronic solution handles the transmission of sales and repayment data from country elevators to commodity
group offices.
The Agri-eBusiness application provides a loan status database that is maintained by commodity groups. The Agri-eBusiness
system also contains a data warehouse, which stores sales transaction data.
The commodity groups value the security and confidentiality of the producer and elevator information that is handled
through the system. As a result, Agri-eBusiness Group has established an Ethics and Business Standards Committee
that will have policies and procedures on information security - a first for the grains and oilseeds industry.
The Agri-eBusiness Group recently received grant funding from the Agricultural Adaptation Council for investment
in expanded business development and the cost of merging commodity group producer lists to develop common identifier
numbers. These numbers in time will replace the current corn, wheat and ACC membership numbers and will include
soybean growers as well.
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