CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S. — Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill have agreed to form a technology joint venture called Grainbridge LLC that will provide grain marketing decision support, e-commerce and account management software for farmers in the United States and Canada. The joint venture will develop digital tools to help farmers consolidate information on production economics and grain marketing activities into a single digital platform, at no cost to farmers.

“(Farmers) 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,” said Roger Watchorn, president of Cargill’s North American agricultural supply chain. “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.”

Grainbridge will give farmers secure access to their combined ADM and Cargill transactions, including contracts, scale tickets and payment information. Data will not be on the Grainbridge platform unless approved by the individual farmer, and individual customer data will not be shared between participating companies. The joint venture intends to introduce a way for farmers to execute grain transactions on their own schedule.

“We are often asked by our farmer customers to provide technology solutions that provide them relief to a problem they are experiencing, and we can sense the underlying need to solve a variety of problems that go unmentioned,” said Wes Uhlmeyer, president of ADM Grain. “This new platform will be a tool they’ve long needed that solves many of those known and suspected pain points we hear about each day.”

The announcement comes days after ADM, Cargill, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus said they would work together to standardize and digitize global agricultural shipping transactions.