Wheat industry information flows quickly

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 12

Wheat industry information flows quickly

A free market in wheat nowadays demands a fast and efficient exchange of information, something that is already being provided by the Aratex vidoetex system, according to the assistant general manager of the Wheat Board, Mr Stewart Mitchell. The board launched the videotex system, as part of the Aditel network operated by 8.P.1. Systems, Ltd of Wellington, and it has found quick acceptance in the wheat industry, Mr Mitchell has said. After an initial concentration on the commercial side of Aratex — used by wheat brokers, graders, millers and bakers as well as the board and the Wheat Research Institute — the advantages of the system will be promoted to growers in the next few months.

“The free interchange of information will be essential in a deregulated wheat industry,” Mr Mitchell said, and growers will need access to this information pretty quickly if they want to trade their grain.” Aratex is at present divided into two sections — the public informaton side and the closed commercial user group. A subscriber to the service (at a cost of $lOO plus $2O a month and 17 cents a minute of access time) needs a terminal and keyboard, which are usually rented, and special Post Office connections to the house or office. A subscriber to Aratex automatically gets the public information section of the wider Aditel database and 8.P.1. has specialised in agricultural industry information and user groups.

The public section of Aratex, mostly contributed by the Wheat Board, contains a directory of the people involved in the industry; some small news items and a list of coming events; financial statistics;

notes on cultivars and their performance; the Plant Health Monitor and probably the most used section— that on wheat prices domestically and overseas.

Aratex is now offering the daily Australian Wheat Board quotations, updated at 4 p.m. each weekday, f.o.b. Pacific coast prices for Canadian wheat and the daily United States and European prices.

These latter two come every morning from Prestel, the United Kingdom videotex system, after the board rings London, hooks in for a few seconds to transfer the required information on to its own computer and then breaks the connection. Later the information is retrieved by the board and relayed out on Aratex.

In the United Kingdom, said Mr Mitchell, the millers advertise their requirements and contract details on the public section of the arable section videotex, but that has yet to come on the New Zealand system, which is less than a year old.

But in the closed user group something similar occurs.

Most of the millers, brokers and grain graders are now linked to the board and each other with this section but some confidentiality can be maintained with access codes and harvest sample numbers. For instance, the different offices of one grain merchant can correspond with each other without letting anyone else in the industry know. Quality results from this harvest will be moved from the W.R.I. and the graders back to the grain agents and thence to the farmers. The almost instantaneous movement of this information is certainly an improvement on the seven to 10 days that results were taking to reach brokers and growers.