Digital transformation in the agro-sector

The sharp competition in the world market of agricultural products leads to a decrease in the marginal business of producers. Under such conditions, for many agro-enterprises, the improvement of efficiency becomes a matter of survival. Modern IT-solutions play an important role in this. AgriChain recently introduced its modular online platform for agribusiness management.

It should be noted that AgriChain was founded by one of the largest agro-industrial holdings in Ukraine – “ASTARTA-Kyiv”, which includes eight sugar plants, a company for processing soya and dairy farms. For a quarter of a century of work on the domestic market, the holding was able to reach the leading positions in the field of sugar, industrial milk, and soya production. Since 2006, its shares are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, and by the results of 2019, revenues have increased by 20% and reached EUR 448 million.

Starting with the presentation of the new product Natalia Bogacheva, SEO AgriChain, noted that many agro-companies are trying to improve the work of their subdivisions at the expense of different it-tools – from Microsoft Excel tables to the system of accounting based on 1C and modules of telemetry. However, as a result of the development, the majority tend to come to the necessity of full automation of planning and management processes, which, in turn, is based on the problems of integration and data exchange in the existing “zoo” decisions. faced with this task in “Astarta-Kyiv” decided, based on rich expertise in the field of management of medium and large agro-enterprises, to create a comprehensive software product to ensure planning, control, and accounting of the whole chain of production processes. For this purpose AgriChain Company was established.

“A lot of financial and human resources have been invested Into the project, and the solution was based on both the experience and the work of market participants. Development is carried out based on technological stack .NET, the programming language C # and Java, use Agile approach to development », – said Natalia Bogachev. She also reported that the system as a whole has gone about two years, and its active improvement continues.

AgriChain is a multi-module platform, combining solutions for business processes automation and efficient management of all areas of agribusiness activity: Landbank management, production, crop monitoring, warehouse management, purchasing and supply of parts, control of work of machinery and repairs, logistics of parts and finished products.

At the heart of the AgriChain solution, the concept is complete integration with the 1C accounting system, data from various equipment, and telemetry (GPS trackers, SUVs, filling complexes, trailer tags, RFID, data collection terminals, on-board computers, weather stations, soil moisture sensors, etc.), satellite and meteorological data, which are consolidated into a single system for further analysis, processing and decision making based on risk-management.

As Natalia Bogacheva reported, since last year the system has been used at 16 enterprises “Astarta-Kyiv” and has already shown its effectiveness. For example, the land bank management module AgriChain Land has allowed reducing costs for the first year of operation by an average of $7 per hectare, and the operational management module AgriChain Farm has given an economic effect of $ 8,1 per hectare.

The company is ready to share its achievements with market participants and hopes that over time the platform will become the standard management system for the industry. The first commercial contracts for the deployment of AgriChain modules for third-party companies have already been concluded and several pilot projects have been launched.

Digital transformation in the agro-sector

Natalia Bogacheva: “Agrichain invites agro-producers to the constructive dialog, exchange of experience and effective practices. We offer to unite in the use of AgriChain platforms, which will allow at all stages of the production process to carry out qualitative planning and management, and control risks, thus increasing the efficiency of each specific producer.

Today AgriChain platform consists of five ready-made modules and three more are at the stage of active development. They can be used separately or together. the following modules are available:

AgriChain Land – land bank management;
AgriChain Farm – planning and management of production processes;
AgriChain Scout – crop monitoring, analysis, and dynamic yield forecasting;
AgriChain Barn – warehouse and warehouse logistics management of the enterprise;
AgriChain Kit is a designer of the creation and management of the business processes of the company.

Natalia Bogacheva noted that by the end of the year it is planned to release the following releases:

AgriChain Auto – machinery management (work control and repairs);
AgriChain Harvest – management of logistics of the parts (warehouse-field) and products from the field (field-current-elevator / sugar plant);
AgriChain Report – BI-system for analytical reports.

The system is available as a cloud service, as well as in the form of a box solution. In the first variant, AgriChain company is engaged in system development and maintenance, and the second one provides client-side administration and data storage on its servers. At the same time, AgriChain specialists also advise and support clients, help implement the system, and train specialists.

“The advantages of the unified information system AgriChain include Modular structure, integration with 1C accounting system and other industry solutions, flexible automated business processes, risk-based analytical reporting system, an online platform with browser access or mobile applications, etc.”, – summed Natalia Bogacheva.