Tracing Grain Movements

Jun 12, 2023


Tom-Bright-Photo
Moundridge, KS-based Producer Ag is using AgTrax’s Elevate Advanced Bin Management and Comprehensive Grain Traceability software to track all the grain handled at 49 of its 53 locations. Producer Ag, LLC is a grain marketing joint venture between Mid-Kansas Cooperative (MKC) and CHS, Inc.

“Producer Ag serves as the grain division of MKC,” states Tom Bright, grain merchandiser in Producer Ag’s Wichita, KS office. Producer Ag handles wheat, corn, soybeans, milo, canola, and sunflowers. Producer Ag has been a customer of AgTrax since February 2000 and has been using Elevate for more than a year.

“We had a desire to better manage grain quality and, with Elevate, we are more aware of the quality of our grain in real time,” Bright says. “Elevate allows us to see a picture of what we have in storage at the present time and allows Producer Ag to trace the movement of grain across our facilities in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.”

Management Tool
Elevate also assists Producer Ag in communicating among its many locations. “We were looking for a tool that would allow us to have a better management system and a communication tool for each locations’ information to be easily shared with our merchandisers and leaders,” he notes.

“Elevate gives us an updated view for every truck load of grain that goes in or out of a bin. We can see the mix in that specific bin and each bin across the company so we can make the best decision to buy or sell grain.”

In the year that Producer Ag has used AgTrax’s Elevate software, it is satisfied with what it has accomplished for the grainhandling company, according to Bright. “We got in on the ground floor, and every day our managers are getting a perpetual inventory that is basically live every time grain is moved. It has become a critical component of our management and will become more critical as we move forward.”

Elevate Software
“AgTrax, which has provided grain accounting software to the agriculture industry since 1996, introduced Elevate advanced bin management software in November 2019 as the first software system that combines traceability and bin management in one product” states Gayle Lewis, president of AgTrax.

Elevate also can compare average factor information by bin, such as high moisture or high protein, which is especially important with wheat, explains Bright. “Elevate helps us to better understand where the grain has come from,” he adds, “which is more important than ever, because the grain trade is increasingly recognizing that end-users need to trace where grain comes from and where it has been shipped.”
       
Jerry Perkins, contributing editor

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