USA – Archer Daniels Midland Company and Cargill, Incorporated have formed new joint venture Grainbridge LLC, a technology platform to support farmers in North America with grain marketing skills.

The partnership intends to provide grain marketing decision support, e-commerce and account management software for North American farmers.

The platform will also engage in development of digital tools designed to help farmers across the U.S. and Canada consolidate information on production economics and grain marketing activities into a single digital platform, at no cost to them.

When the transaction is closed, farmers will get access to their combined ADM and Cargill transactions, including contracts, scale tickets and payment information, all designed to provide farmers with insights into their current grain position and real-time opportunities.

“Farmers deserve the convenience of technology that gives them the power to make quick, effective and fact-based grain marketing decisions,” said Wes Uhlmeyer, president, ADM Grain.

“This new joint venture will provide for these needs with a single, powerful, easy-to-use platform for farmers to manage their accounts, make grain marketing decisions and execute transactions.

We’re particularly excited to work with Cargill on this joint venture to offer an unparalleled array of tools that provide farmers across the country access to powerful decision support, business intelligence and transactional efficiency.

While remaining strong competitors, we recognize the need to advance technology for farmers and believe that together we can accomplish that common goal.”

Farmers will be able to execute grain transactions on their own schedule in a simple and easy way while receiving information regarding break-even levels, margin price targets, total current grain and risk management positions, revenue at risk and access to benchmark and historical insights.

Roger Watchorn, president of Cargill’s North American agricultural supply chain said: “Farmers can more effectively market grain and improve their profitability using technology and data analytics.”

“They need digital tools that seamlessly connect their production and cost-of-production data from a variety of sources already used on their farms—but those tools simply aren’t available today.

Together, Cargill and ADM’s unique technology capabilities, grain handling operations and years of farm consulting experience allow us to more quickly create the digital tools that will drive efficiency and profitability for farmers.”

The ultimate goal of the venture is to help farmers make better, smarter decisions using data existing in their operations in the changing market conditions.