OMAHA, Neb. — Farmers across the U.S. and Canada can access advanced technology for marketing their grain more effectively and improving profitability when STRATUM, a new, first-of-its-kind digital platform, is introduced by GrainBridge in the first quarter of 2020.

Currently, farmers must rely on multiple applications and data points to track inputs, production and their marketing activities. Until now, there has been no single tool for efficiently storing and managing all this information.

“It can become overwhelming to attempt to organize and manage all of that information, especially from a marketing perspective,” said Faith Larson, GrainBridge chief strategy officer. “In contrast, STRATUM will enable farmers to conveniently consolidate information on production economics and grain marketing activities into a single digital platform, at no cost to them.” 

With STRATUM, farmers will be able to retrieve their respective agribusiness accounts so they can obtain location information, prices, grain contracts, and payment information, as well as enter into and manage grain contracts. The system currently includes more than 400 grain-buying locations, and Larson said GrainBridge is continuing to add more.

“Farmers are continually looking for ways to integrate technology into their operations, and the amount of information that they will be able to access with STRATUM is going to be powerful,” said Terry Chvatal, GrainBridge chief operations officer. “A farmer can check prices, pull their contracts and scale tickets, make sales, manage market risk and build and administer their planned budget, all without leaving STRATUM.”

He added that the platform will provide the right data farmers need to make the very best grain marketing decisions. “Farmers will have access to a dashboard of information about their own marketing performance but also highly aggregated, regionalized-based analysis,” Chvatal explained. “Historical performance, current values of unsold grain and impact analysis, among other key data points, will be accessible.”

Security and Privacy

The system also incorporates features to ensure the security and privacy of farmer information. Only the farmer will have access to their own data with full control, including the flexibility to share their information with those they wish. Grain buyers will only have access to the customer data they provide through STRATUM, such as contracts. 

“Security and privacy are very important to not only GrainBridge, but we also realize how important that is to the farming community. Most importantly, at no point in time will GrainBridge compromise a farmer’s identity and information,” Larson stated.

Feedback has been positive from members of a farmer advisory board who have tested the new platform. “Farmers have told us that they don’t want another app or software to add to the ones they already have. They want innovations that minimize the amount of technology they have to rely on to make smart decisions,” Larson said.

The concept for the new digital platform was first unveiled this past fall, when GrainBridge, LLC was formed as a joint technology venture between Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) and Cargill, Incorporated. STRATUM was recently selected as the platform name.

GrainBridge leverages Amazon Web Services to build the predictive grain marketing decision support and grain trading platform for ag commodities. Working with AWS provides highly secure and scalable cloud services for GrainBridge’s farmer profitability platform. In addition to being available to current customers of ADM and Cargill, the platform is open to all grain companies who would like to pursue the application for their customer base. For more information, call 800.515.5657 or visit GrainBridge.com/stratum.