Grain traceability trial on Illinois farm
The new standards for data exchange will give grain producers, handlers more data management capabilities to address the needs of FSMA.
Photo courtesy of AgGateway.
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. — AgGateway teams working on standards for grain tracking ran a successful field trial last month on a corn farm in Olney, Illinois, U.S., a step forward in enabling 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 AgGateway’s Annual Conference in San Diego, California, U.S. 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 (FSMA). 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).

 
“We were thrilled to get the standards into the field, and to see the successful, seamless transfer of data, which will greatly increase efficiencies and will provide powerful new tools to the industry,” said Jeremy W. Wilson, technology specialist at Crop IMS and chair of AgGateway’s Precision Agriculture Council. 

Wilson and his father own and run the farm where the test took place.
 
The proof-of-concept involved three grain trucks and one grain cart capturing data with a gateway device, while beacons were installed on the combine, grain cart, grain bins and an elevator to send signals to the relay, signaling a grain transfer. The harvest data (Harvest Work Records) was sent wirelessly to the AgLeader Agfiniti portal, and the scale data from the grain cart was wirelessly transferred to the Topcon/DigiStar Harvest Tracker online system. The combine machine data was sent wirelessly through the AGCO AgCommand telemetry system to capture the unload auger running event, to validate the beacon data. It also used a PLM Connect from CNH Industrial to log the power take-off (PTO), engaged to validate the beacon data transfer event from the auger cart to the grain truck. The gateway-beacons were used to capture which vehicle pairs participated in each of the grain transfers. That data was then transmitted wirelessly to the AWS IoT platform.
 
AgGateway's Precision Ag Council and Grain & Feed Council launched CART in 2015 in response to the needs of growers for more effective electronic data exchange at the interfaces between harvesting equipment and transport vehicles, through delivery to a grain elevator or storage bin. The effort is part of AgGateway’s SPADE precision agriculture project.
 
CART expands and looks to implement standardized messages from the widely adopted AgXML standards for rail, barge and truck grain transport. These standards serve as the basis for electronic transaction for bills of lading, commodity movement, contracts, contract pricing, quality certificates, weight certificates, rail rates electronic exchange, biofuels support and settlements.

The AgGateway teams now will work to refine the standards based on the field test, and plan to finalize the standards this year.

The CART team includes participants from Ag Connections, Ag Leader, AGCO, AgIntegrated, BASF, Bayer CropScience, CLAAS, CNH Industrial, Conservis, Crop IMS, Digi-Star, DTN/The Progressive Farmer, F4F Agriculture, Farmobile, GROWMARK, Heartland Co-op, Insero, John Deere, Land O' Lakes, MapShots, OAGi, Praxidyn, ProAg, Purdue University/OADA, Raven, Software Solutions Integrated, SST Software, Syngenta, Texas A&M University, Topcon Agriculture, Trimble, Vita Plus, XS Inc, Wysocki and ZedX.
 
AgGateway teams draw on existing standards where possible, and collaborate with other organizations as needed. For CART, standards organizations such as the Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation (AEF), the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Open Applications Group (OAGi) and the United National Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) have resources and activities that the team is drawing on in completing the standards.