AgroGrid – Grid Technologies in Agro Food Business

Abstract

Today’s global food industry represents a huge market of US$ 3,500 billion pa (Wijnands et al. 2006). Nevertheless, food supply chains are characterized by fixed trade relations with long term contracts established between heterogeneous supply chain companies. In addition, consumer demands have undergone a dramatic change during the last four decades. Quality, food safety and uniqueness are the leading factors for buying decisions. Altogether, this causes three main problems companies in the food sector need to be prepared for. First, new ways to coordinate companies in to a supply chain must be installed in order to reach an efficient exploitation of globally distributed capacities. Second, cost-effective mechanisms for collaboration are needed. And third, an integrated tracking and tracing solution is essential to ensure food quality and safety on a global scale. AgroGrid is a Business Experiment addressing above mentioned challenges by providing a Grid-based solution for supply chains in the agricultural industry. AgroGrid implements a Grid-enabled market place that allows companies operating in agriculture food markets to offer and source capacities, to negotiate quality of food to be delivered, to establish contracts, and to create customised dynamic supply chains (Volk et al. 2009b). Thereby, capacities in AgroGrid include any products and services offered by a participant, e.g., food products, transport and/ or storage capacities. AgroGrid also provides facilities to monitor the quality and safety of food products delivered across supply chains.