CybaCity

AGRICOMEX's approach to food and fibre trading heralds a more effective approach for low income agricultural and horticultural producers throughout the world.

This system enables farmers and traders to set up an operational brokerage, with free communications, within an hour and with direct access to the AGRICOMEX trading floors.

Strategic technologies for accessing Agricultural Markets

Commodities are the backbone of the majority of developing countries, in particular the least developed amongst them. Of the 2.4 billion people employed in agriculture some 1 billion derive a significant part of their income from producing commodities for export. Some countries rely on agricultural exports for more than 50% of their export earnings. Generally the least developed countries (LDCs) are more commodity dependent. Half of the African countries rely on export commodities for 80% of their income and almost 50 developing countries depend on three or less commodities for more than half of their total export earnings.

International agreements & the World Trade Organization

There has been much comment recently in the international press concerning the WTO negotiations. In reality protectionism is rampant, not only in relation to the European Union but also the United States. Very little significant change is expected within such a contentious environment other than a very gradual decline in tariffs.

Non-tariff barriers

The greatest danger facing producers in developing countries is the gradual impact of non-tariff barriers. One of the most important is produce traceability. Both the USA and European Union have introduced traceability legislation but broadly speaking the majority of the requirements only impact trade once the commodities have arrived in those markets.
The political pressure within the USA and the European Union to impose the full weight of traceability legislation on exporters to these markets is intense. If such decisions are supported by legislators the impact will be far greater than tariffs. Producers with inadequate traceability records will not be able to sell their produce.

Key strategic issues

There are three strategic issues facing producers and exporters in developing countries:

the lack of organization of accessible commodity exchanges for the full range of commodities
the high costs of telecommunications which prevent small producers, and their organizations, from gaining access to the full range of potential buyers in the North American and European Union markets
the lack of effective planning to put cost effective traceability systems in place

Strategic technologies

An example of a practical way of tackling these problems are recent developments at AgriComex, the international agricultural commodity exchange. These have been brought about by Navatec.Com the online business applications service provider. Navatec.Com manages the Real Net a global private network which can only be accessed using Navatec Voyager a very powerful client interface. Staff and associates at Navatec are amongst the world leaders in commodity applications including commodity exchanges and food chain traceability. AgriComex is an online trade clearance system.

This collaboration has resuled in the use of Navatec Voyager as the user interface. The collaboration has resulted in the development of plug-ins for the Navatec Voyager such as VoIP telephony which easily integrates into other useful trade applications such as a document flow system which creates requests, offers and acceptances and spam free mail. All of these services and a global 24x7 telecommunications VoIP service are supplied free of charge. This system has a complete brokerage suit so that individuals and even companies can set up a profit-generating brokerage business. AgriComex will even provide the training of new brokers on how to use the systems. For low income countries where the issue of brokerage fees and asking prices is a constant issue, this is nothing short of a revolution in terms of access to markets at a very low cost.

Navatec.Com has also developed a plug-in for a traceability system with barcode technology. The barcode technology can be activated simply by clicking on a button. To date, traceability systems have been expensive or have been unable to sustain a common standard throughout the supply chain. With AgriComex's next upgrade expected in June 2006 this is about to change.

Hector McNeill of Navatec.Com says that,"This is a good example of the application of strategic technologies. Strategic in the sense that the system provides a practical solution for developing country exporters to increase their market access at a lower cost. This will help them secure increased sales and profits and thereby contribute to the economic development of their countries. On the issue of traceability, we have used the tactic of introducing traceability standards which exceed those currently applied within the EU and US markets. Accordingly users of this system, will be able to respond to any legislative demand in the traceability field more rapidly than producers within those markets. This will provide a high standard of transparency and coherence of traceability data right down the supply chain, from farm to table."