World meat industry news

The Ministry of Agriculture offered large Russian agricultural companies to finance 20% of the cost of import substitution of the production software they need. At the same time, the developer companies will remain the copyright holders of the solutions. Sources in the market say that large agricultural holdings use their own IT solutions, are not too interested in supporting external contractors and are ready for this only if the state subsidizes the introduction of new software.

On July 18, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Agriculture with representatives of the largest Russian livestock companies (EkoNiva, Rusmoloko, Tavros, Agropromkomplektatsiya, etc.), to discuss the prospects for using Russian software for managing agricultural enterprises. This was told by a source who was present at the meeting. According to him, officials stressed that it is necessary to "quickly import-substitute solutions that are insanely important for production chains." We are talking about foreign specialized software. For example, the Smartbow program (USA) allows you to monitor the health and movement of livestock, Cloudfarms (Slovakia) analyzes and manages data for pig farms, and BigFarmNet (USA) allows you to remotely monitor the number of pigs.

At the meeting, a representative of the ministry invited each of the manufacturers to identify solutions that need to be replaced. These proposals will be sent to the Ministry of Digital Development for approval.

Then, as part of the co-financing program, software consumers will have to pay developers 100% of the cost of creating software, 80% of which will be returned in the form of subsidies.

According to the source, developers, not agricultural producers, will remain software copyright holders.

The Ministry of Agriculture, the interlocutor says, plans to prepare documents for the Ministry of Digital Development within two weeks and sign agreements between consumers and software developers by November 1. The Ministry of Agriculture admits that "the issues of providing the Russian agro-industrial complex with domestic software are being worked out." The Ministry of Digital Development did not respond to a request. Andrey Grigorashchenko, Vice-President of the Damate Group of Companies, confirmed the fact of the meeting and added that "the business, together with the developers, will start developing software that needs to be replaced with imports."

However, in informal conversations, the meeting participants say that large agricultural holdings have long been engaged in the transition to software of their own design, developing IT departments.

The creation of Russian software, the transition to it, as well as technical support for third-party software will cost more than their own, the interlocutors say. Yes, and there are no problems with foreign software yet, one of the sources emphasizes. Unlike broader companies, the developers did not revoke licenses, support and updates.

“The transfer of a large-scale agricultural holding to alternative Russian software is a long and expensive process, therefore, without financial stimulation and a critical need, it is difficult to imagine this process on a voluntary basis. In this case, support will be required not only for software developers, but also for companies that will purchase and implement it in production,” one of the livestock breeders believes. Another participant of the meeting clarifies that a number of companies are ready to work according to this scheme, but only if they become the copyright holders of the software.

Nikolai Komlev, executive director of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises (APKIT), calls compensation of up to 80% of investments “a good incentive for enterprises to join the project,” and predictably supports the preservation of software rights for developers. However, Dmitry Peterson, COO of industrial software developer SimbirSoft, shares the doubts of livestock breeders: “Since they act as customers and pay for turnkey development, they should become copyright holders.”