ICT and supply management in agribusiness

Agribusiness such as food manufactures and food retailers constitute an important step in agriculture. They are the ultimate buyers for farmers, and at the same time, they are the connection between agriculture to the commodity market. In recent years, in India and Latin America, there's a trend for these agribusiness to skip the wholesale market, and engage directly with the farmers during procurement process. This could benefit the agribusiness with lower costs, the farmers with higher profits and also reducing the business process layer by integrating wholesalers' work.

Such an improvement cannot be achieved without ICT. ICT facilitate this procurement process in agribusiness, local offices, collection centers and also farmers' terminals, forming an extending networking that enable entities and individuals who engaged in this process to link together. Suguna Poultry, an Indian food company, obtain raw materials from more than 10000  farmers scatter around 270 places. Suguna uses world-class Supply Chain Management (SCM) Software to manage the operation and track information and data for its tremendous supplier network. Another company, Godrej Agrovet, who gains revenue from different channel including agrochemicals, animal feed and poultry, uses SAP software to interact with farmers. Olam from Singapore, sourcing operations from over 60 countries in the world also leverage SAP software to manage the production activities.

These companies are able to expand their scales and obtain sources and operations from different locations with the development of ICT. The industry also benefits from these integrated business process.