CART initiative for standardized grain-handling information management nears completion

AgGateway officials, representatives of member companies and academics recently met to create a plan for finishing work on the Commodity Automation for Rail and Truck (CART) initiative, which will establish standards for grain-handling information management.

The meeting, which took place in Shelbyville, Illinois, at the Software Solutions Integrated corporate offices, was a key step in wrapping the collaborative effort, which represents nearly two years of work.

Driven by growers’ needs, the initiative aims to foster more effective exchanges of electronic data throughout the transportation chain, allowing for improved interfaces between all steps of the process from harvesting vehicles to grain storage bins and everything in between. CART would implement AgXML standards for barge, rail and truck grain transport, facilitating traceability and compliance with the Food Safety Modernization Act.

“The grain industry has not been able to efficiently track harvested grain—from harvester to grain cart, grain cart to truck, truck to elevator and elevator to processor,” said AgGateway’s Grain & Feed Council Chair Phil Kubesh, who is also the IT manager at Vita Plus Corporation. “These new standards pave the way for growers to much more efficiently transact and manage that valuable data.”