Frequently Used Abbreviations

ADAPT

Ag Data Application Programming Toolkit - is an open-source framework comprised of an Agricultural Application Data Model (ADM), a common API (Application Programming Interface), and a combination of open source and proprietary data conversion plugins.  Participating FMIS (Farm Management Information System) companies will be responsible for completing their own implementation of mapping the ADM to their FMIS data model

AEF

Agriculture Industry Electronics Foundation - is an independent, international  organization. As a user platform, it provides resources and know-how for the increased use of electronic and electrical systems in farming

AEM

Ag Equipment Manufacturers - is a trade association that provides services on a global basis for companies that manufacture equipment, products and services used worldwide in the following industries: Agriculture, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Utilities

AFBF

American Farm Bureau Federation - is the unified national voice of agriculture, working through our grassroots organizations to enhance and strengthen the lives of rural Americans and to build strong, prosperous agricultural communities.

AFIA

American Feed Industry Association - is an organization devoted exclusively to representing the business, legislative and regulatory interests of the U.S. animal feed industry and its suppliers.

API

Application Programming Interface - is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API expresses a software component in terms of its operations, inputs, outputs, and underlying types.  An API defines functionalities that are interdependent of their respective implementations, which allows definitions and implementations, to vary without compromising each other. 

 APQC

American Productivity & Quality Center -  an organization focused on business process best practices, benchmarking and knowledge sharing.

ARA

Agricultural Retailers Association - is an industry organization that advocates, influences, educates and provides services to support its members in their quest to maintain a profitable business environment, adapt to a changing world and preserve their freedom to operate.  They are an AgGateway member.

ARS

 Ag Research Service -  The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific in-house research agency. Their job is finding solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day from field to table.

ASABE

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers - Professional and technical organization of members worldwide interested in engineering knowledge and technology for food and agriculture

AEC Project

Accelerated Electronic Connectivity Project - an eBusiness connectivity project in the Crop Protection segment (2004-2006) that was sponsored by the RAPID organization. RAPID was a predecessor organization to the AgGateway organization

AGIIS

Ag Industry Identification System - an industry wide directory database owned and managed by AgGateway and hosted by CSC, Inc (formerly Covansys). The AGIIS Directory's technical architecture provides a repository for industry common data elements and serves as the fundamental building block for making efficient industry electronic business a reality. With common, well-defined and properly maintained industry data, existing business inefficiencies and their related costs can be significantly reduced.

AIDC Project

Automatic identification and Data Capture - project refers to the methods of automatically identifying objects, collecting data about them, and entering that data directly into computer systems (i.e. without human involvement).   This project will also collaborate with CRISTAL organization on guidelines.

ANSI-X12

American National Standards Institute, X12 Committee - A committee within the ANSI organization charged with developing data formats for standard business documents with cross industry application.

ARA

The Agricultural Retailers Association advocates, influences, educates and provides services to support sellers of seeds, nutrients, crop protection products, farm equipment, precision technology and agronomic services.

ARC

Ag Retail Council – the governing body for the companies that deliver agricultural inputs to growers.  

APC

Allied Providers Council – - the governing body for the companies that conceive, design, build, deploy and support electronic information management systems and accompanying services to the broad array of AgGateway members.  

ASTA

American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) is one of the oldest trade organizations in the United States. Its membership consists of over 700 companies involved in seed production and distribution, plant breeding, and related industries in North America.

BPMN

Business Process Model Notation - is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model.

BOD

Board of Directors - also referred to as the Strategic Board of Directors (SBOD).  See SBOD for definition.

CART Project

Commodity Automation Rail & Truck - a grain segment pilot project utilizing the Commodities Movement message between trading partners.

CEO

Chief Executive Officer – responsible to the Board of Directors and the membership for maximizing the value of the organization.  This role is filled by Wendy Smith

C-Level

Chief Officer level – these are the collective group of executive officers within an organization.

CIDX

Chemical Industry Data Exchange – CIDX was a non-profit chemical-industry eBusiness standards organization. In 2009, CIDX merged with OAGi (Open Applications Group). CIDX developed Chem eStandards, which is also known as Ag eStandards. OAGi manages Chem eStandards.

CIO

Chief Information Officer - commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals.  Many of our member companies’ CIOs participate in the AG CIO Roundtable Forum (no relationship to AgGateway) along with other ag companies.

CLA

CropLife America - is a US trade association representing the major manufacturers, formulators and distributors of crop protection and pest control products.

COO

Chief Operating Officer – responsible for the operational aspects of the organization.  This role is filled by Brent Kemp

CP

Crop Protection – segment or industry within AgGateway.

CPC

Crop Protection Council – - the governing body for the crop protection (chemical) businesses within the AgGateway organization.  

CN

Crop Nutrition – segment or industry within AgGateway. 

CNC

Crop Nutrition Council – One of 7 active councils OR Crop Nutrition Connectivity Project – an XML contract-to-invoice eBusiness connectivity project(s) in the Crop Nutrition segment.

DOC

Directory Oversight Committee – This is a committee that is elected to oversee the AGIIS (Ag Industry Identification System) directory.

DRC

Digital Resource Center - This is a new organizational structure within AgGateway 2020.  This center oversees the Architecture, Standards & Guidelines, Directory Oversight Committee, and ADAPT committees.  It also works closely with the Portfolio Management Center with the Working Groups.

EBID

E-Business Identification  is a 13-character alpha-numeric code used to identify physical locations, including but not limited to, manufacturing facilities, distribution facilities, retail locations, end use businesses, drop points, rail sidings, and locations identified by geographic location (latitude and longitude.) EBID identifiers issued after September 2012 have the same numeric value as the GLN assigned to the entity.  The EBID is an older term, and is rarely used after about 2017.

ebMS

eBusiness Messaging Specifications - 

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange - the electronic transmission of data from computer-to-computer. Couple of the types of EDI are EDI-X12 and XML.

EDI-X12

X12 Electronic Data Interchange - is an approved, published, and maintained formal description of how to structure the data required to perform a specific business function, in such a way as to allow for the transfer and handling of this data by electronic means

EFC Project

Enhanced Feed Connectivity Project - an XML order-to-invoice eBusiness project in the Feed segment/industry.

ERP

Enterprise resource planning  is a business management software—usually a suite of integrated applications—that a company can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities (such as product planning, product costing, manufacturing or delivery service, marketing, sales, inventory management, shipping, etc.)

FIPS

Federal Information Processing Standard - code used to identify counties with states or provinces.

FMIS

Farm Management Information System - is a generic term for an integrated workflow software used to manage a farm (such as scouting, sampling, pest, soil nutrition, irrigation, contract, harvest, planting, labor, etc.)

FTP

File Transfer Protocol is a standard internet protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another over the internet.

FVTF

Future Vision Task Force - A group representing the extant AgGateway councils in 2012, commissioned to identify key needs of the industry to promote, enable and expand eBusiness into the future, to evaluate those needs against the current tools providing unique identifiers and other eBusiness resources, and to build a document describing the resulting business and technical needs and requirements. The task force delivered the first draft of its documentation to AgGateway in November 2013, and refined the format and content through 2014. The current working document resides on the AgGateway wiki. The task force has completed its initial charge and has disbanded, although a small working group continues to review comments and plan next steps.

GFC

Grain & Feed Council – newly formed council consisting of both the Grain and Feed segments of the industry

GLN

Global Location Number - is a unique 13 digit industry identifier that consists of a company prefix issued by GS-1, a location reference code and a check digit. The GLN can be used along with common data elements to identify physical locations, legal entities and individual persons within the agricultural industry. All active entities in AGIIS are identifiedwith a GLN. AGW maintains prefixes for the purpose of creating GLNs for entities that do not have prefixes themselves. The resulting GLN is referred to as an “AGIIS assigned GLN”

GS1

(originally identified as Global Standards 1, but was then changed to just GS1 (www.gs1.org) -  formerly known as the Uniform Commercial Council (UCC), is the not-for-profit administrative and educational organization that works with U.S. and Canadian industry to develop and administer product identification and EDI standards; issues a UPC identification number to the owner/controller of a product label, i.e., a manufacturer, retailer, wholesaler, jobber, etc.; publishes all UPC technical specifications and guidelines; and educates the business community about the Universal Product Code.

GTIN

Global Trade Item Number - describes a family of GS1 (EAN.UCC) global data structures that employ 14 digits and can be encoded into various types of data carriers..  This is the AgGateway standard identifier for agricultural products in AGIIS. The GTIN, as defined in the AgGateway standard, is a 14-digit code consisting of an indicator digit, a company code issued by GS-1, a unique product number assigned by the manufacturer, and a check digit.

 GTTR Project

Germplasm. Trait, & Treatment Reporting Project -this project completed the design of an XML reporting message for seed germplasm, trait and treatment reporting.   

IPR

Intellectual Property Rights - include patents, copyright, industrial design rights, trademarks, trade dress, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.

IPSA

Independent Professional Seed Association -is an organization to represent the unique needs of independent seed companies.

IRG

Insurance & Regulatory Group - Working group within the Precision Ag Council that focuses on insurance and regulatory data and issues.

ISO

International Organization for Standardization - derived from the Greek isos, meaning "equal". Is a global standards organization

LACS

Locatable Address Conversion System - is the physical address updates for 911 emergency system conversions provided by the United States Postal Service. These updates are included in the Annual Maintenance of entity records in AGIIS

MSA

Moved, Seconded, and Approved -used as a shortcut in minutes to identify these action

M/S

Moved, Seconded -used as a shortcut on minutes to identify these actions.

MT

Management Team – the team responsible for the operational area of AgGateway.  These team members are appointed by the Board of Directors

NAPD

North American Product Directory - Is an obsolete grower directory that was used in the industry (1999-2003 - prior to the AGIIS (Ag Industry Identification System) was established.  The information from the NAPD was rolled into the AGIIS directory).  NAPD also refers to the obsolete identifier for those growers and end-use identifiers in the NAPD directory.  This term is rarely used after we moved to GLNs (Global Location Numbers) in 2010.

NEXUSe2e

This is not an acronym, but is added in because many think it is an acronym.  The NEXUSe2e is a messaging server that provides XML based messaging using e.g. ebXML and web services to integrate business processes that span multiple companies. Its main use is for supply chain integration, e.g. for exchanging orders and other business documents in electronic form.

NCOA

National Change of Address - is the mailing address updates provided to the United States Postal Service by the USPS COA (change-of-address) form.

NGFA

National Grain and Feed Association - is the national trade association of grain elevators, feed and feed ingredient manufacturers, grain and oilseed processors, exporters, livestock and poultry .

OADA

Open Ag Data Alliance - OADA is an industry organization that claims that they help farmers access and control their data by building an open source framework of commercial vendors, farmers, academics, and developers upon which the emerging ag data market can grow.

OAGi

Open Applications Group, Inc - the organization that oversees the OAGIS -- was formed in November 1994 in an effort to dramatically ease everywhere-to-everywhere integration (inside and outside of the enterprise, as well as across the supply chain). OAGi has done this by crafting standards where necessary and by recommending standards where they already exist.

OAGIS

The Open Applications Group Integration Specification - is an effort to provide a canonical business language for information integration. It uses XML as the common alphabet for defining business messages, and for identifying business processes (scenarios) that allow businesses and business applications to communicate. Not only is OAGIS the most complete set of XML business messages currently available, but it also accommodates the additional requirements of specific industries by partnering with various vertical industry groups.

OMB

Operational Management Board - This board is responsible for the operational business for AgGateway.  Each Council appoints a representative to the OMB.

PA

Precision Ag – segment or industry within Agriculture that focuses on the operations on the farm.

PAC

Precision Ag Council – is the governing body for the Precision Ag segment.

PAIL

Precision Ag Irrigation Leadership - an AgGateway project to enable economic enhancement through a 20% improvement in agricultural Irrigation energy efficiency by the year 2020.

PCI Project

Product Cost Information Project -This was a Crop Protection industry XML messaging project transmitting the Price Sheet information between trading partners.

PMC

Portfolio Management Center - is a new organization structure within AgGateway 2020. 

RAPID

(originally stood for Responsible Ag Product Identification and Distribution, but was later changed to RAPID) - was the predecessor organization to AgGateway, that was focused on enabling eBusiness in the crop protection, seed and Seed segments. RAPID was closed 12/31/08 and members moved to AgGateway.

REST

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture style consisting of guidelines and best practices for creating scalable web services.     REST is a coordinated set of constraints applied to the design of components in a distributed hypermedia system that can lead to a more performance and maintainable architecture. 

SBOD

Strategic Board of Directors - The AgGateway Strategic Board of Directors (also referred to as the AgGateway Board of Directors, or Strategic Board) is comprised of nine members selected by a vote of the AgGateway voting members.  It is accountable to the full membership and is responsible for the management and affairs of the corporation. 

SC Projects

Seed Connectivity Projects - a couple of XML eBusiness connectivity projects sponsored by the Seed Councils to connect trading partners in the seed industry.

SOAP

Simple Object Access protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. It uses XML Information Set for its message format, and relies on other application layer protocols, most notably Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), for message negotiation and transmission.

SPLC

Standard Point Location Code -is a 9 digit geographic code used by North American transportation industries, especially rail. SPLC is owned and maintained by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, and used as a code list within AgGateway XML messages.  

SKU

Standard Keeping Unit -is a distinct item for sale or service, and all attributes associated with the item that distinguish it from other items. For a product, these attributes include, but are not limited to, manufacturer, product description, material, size, color, packaging, and warranty terms. In Ag these are typically referred to an the Member's internal product ID.

TFI

The Fertilizer Institute is an industry organization that is the leading voice of the fertilizer industry, acting as an advocate for fair regulation and legislation, a consistent source for trusted information and data, a networking agent, and an outlet to publicize industry initiatives in safety and environmental stewardship. 

SPADE Projects

 Standard Precision Ag Data Exchange Projects - are AgGateway projects that enable seamless data exchange between machines and Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS) for seeding, crop protection, planting, harvesting,

UML

Unified Modeling Language - is a general-purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering, which is designed to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system.  

UOM

Unit of Measure - in AgGateway this is a standard term used to describe a standard for measurement of quantity.  Typically this is from a code list, in AgGateway standards we use the UN Recommendation 20 for all XML messages and ANSI X12 for the X12 EDI messages.

UN/CEFACT

The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, (UN/CEFACT) is a global standards organization whose mission is to improve the ability of business, trade and administrative organizations, from developed, developing and transitional economies, to exchange products and relevant services effectively - and so contribute to the growth of global commerce. The Centre is a subsidiary body of the UNECE Committee on Trade (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe).

UN Rec

UN-CEFACT Recommendation - are code lists used for global implementations of eBusiness

UPC

Universal Product Code -a GS1 data code structure referred to as EAN/UPC.  Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item.

USDA

United States Department of Agriculture - also known as the Agriculture Department, is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal government policy on farming, agriculture, forestry, and food.

WS

Web Services - is a method of communication between two electronic devices over a network. It is a software function provided at a network address over the Web with the service always on as in the concept of utility computing.

WSDL

Web Services Description Language; a language for describing web services and how to access them  

XML

Extensible Markup Language - is a worldwide-standard way to format structured data.

XRP Project

XML Remittance Payment  - an eBusiness connectivity project for the payment remittance in the Crop Nutrition industry.