GIS «Grain» is a unified system for tracking the movement of each batch of grain within Russia.

The bottom line is that without entering information into this system, it is impossible to sell or buy grain, transport it or hand it over / accept it for storage.

Thanks to the GIS «Grain», an automated collection and analysis of data received from grain producers, its carriers, storage facilities, processors and exporters, as well as numerous supervisory authorities, is carried out.

The system is very similar to the similar EGAIS alcohol accounting system. The goal is the same — to limit the illegal circulation of grain, to ensure that the real quality corresponds to the declared one, to prevent illegal exports bypassing quotas, avoiding duties and taxes.

Hurry with implementation?

With a real need to use the GIS «Grain», which has been talked about for several years, farmers faced in 2022 — and so very difficult.

In March, a “test” launch took place, when it was already possible to submit information to the system, but this was not the responsibility of the farmers. But since September 1, the submission of data has become mandatory.

Everything would be fine, but farmers are not satisfied with a number of points:

The system stably «hangs» almost every day, especially during peak hours, when the working day begins in the European part of Russia. As a result, transferring data is not so easy, it takes several hours to do this.

The interface is far from intuitive. In addition, many companies have to transfer large amounts of data every day. This most often requires hiring additional IT specialists — not every grain producer can boast that he already has personnel of this profile.

The principle of operation of the system implies the introduction of information there at all stages of work with grain lots. And this means that not one specialist from the company should do this, but many people. Starting from the combine operator who harvests. But here the question arises whether such workers have the necessary skills and time.

It seems that the creators of the system believed that there is a stable Internet throughout Russia, but this, to put it mildly, is not entirely true. In some localities, it is not available, so the use of the system is not possible there.

Claims are also caused by the fact that the launch of the GIS «Grain» in a mandatory mode was timed to the beginning of the most active harvesting work, when there is not enough time anyway.

Opora Rossii vs. Ministry of Agriculture: are there any chances?

Opora Rossii, a public association, on behalf of agrarians, recently appealed to Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Victoria Abramchenko with a request to postpone the mandatory implementation of the system until the beginning of next year.

There were successful precedents: for example, a similar delay was achieved with the forest accounting system «Forest EGAIS». But this time, the Deputy Prime Minister forwarded the request to the Ministry of Agriculture, and they answered that there were no problems: the farmers had time to test the system from spring to the end of August.

It seems that we can only hope that the system will be “finished on the go”: the overload issue will be resolved and the interface will be improved.

Or, at least, they will not immediately impose large fines if no one in a small company could figure out how to use the system.