Interesting times are ahead in the digitalisation of agriculture and the extended food chain. The ongoing digital transformation is being fuelled by the high and volatile input prices we have experienced during the last 18 months and the general inflation rates sparking the need to revise old rules of thumb, as well as the pressure to create a more sustainable and climate-smart way to produce food for hungry consumers.
What do we need to do to ensure accurate data exchange?
Make full use of standards in the development of digital solutions.
By standards, we mean internationally agreed definitions of data items that are to be transferred according to commonly agreed processes and handling, and data security and integrity.
Mtech is a pioneer in the digitalisation of the food chain and is therefore also involved in developing standardisation.
As an experienced implementation of integrations
Mtech is using standards such as the ADE from ICAR implemented in the iDDEN dataexchange hub, the GS1, and AgGateway, etc. With this, we enable fast and accurate implementation of data exchange and integration between stakeholders in the food chain.
Standardisation also comes with secondary advantages such as a continuous development and maintenance of the standard by the work in these organisations. Thus providing a stable and growing dataset that can be exchanged.
Moreover, the user of these standards need not worry about costly maintenance activities since that is taken care of by these organizations as well.
Advantages of standardisation
With the help of standards, information flows between different actors will become easier. Closing the data and information gaps between the actors in the food chain, such as input suppliers, wholesalers, agricultural enterprises, food processors, and retailers based on standards allows us to explore at once all the advantages of standardisation, such as interoperability, data quality, security and analytics, traceability, and cost saving.
Costs are saved by reducing waste and correcting faulty processes. Processes becomes easier when the data and information are shared throughout the food chain by the stakeholders.
Moreover, with automated data registration, and data exchange the food chain can close the gap between the actors in the chain. This makes it less time consuming to create reports on carbon footprint and other important areas throughout the food chain.
There are more advantages to explore by applying additional tools into the data and information stream. Examples of these are artificial intelligence, IoT and sensors, and other features allowing the decision makers to be more proactive in the management of the production processes and to avoid costly disruptions and interruptions along the food chain by giving alerts before the damage is a reality.
Sustainability and efficiency
This creates a good platform to reach a more sustainable production both from an environmental perspective and from a human and economic point of view, which is equally important.
At Mtech, we develop solutions that save costs by high factors by using new technologies for data collection and handling not accounting for the managerial benefit that also follows.
Be active in the digitalisation of agriculture and the extended food chain and magical things will happen.
Are you inspired? Contact us to learn more about the digital services we can customise for your business.