Farmer central approach in data use

September 2021

End of August, four events of NPPL and PCvPL took place on farms in The Netherlands to demonstrate advances in application of precision farming. Progress of several variable rate applications (VRA)of seeds and other inputs (water, nutrients, pesticides) in arable, roughage and flower bulb crops were presented by more than 50 companies and knowledge institutes. The farms owners confirmed that they get better results by applying data, knowledge and technology in optimization of specific crop interventions, such as seeding, weed control, nutrient application, crop protection and irrigation. They all want to go beyond VRA with data generated on their farms, but they lack the tools to do so. They foresee better strategic and tactical farming decision for sustainable farming if they have the tools for smart data use.

Why do we make so little progress with smart farming besides VRA? What limits, is that the required data to do so is scattered over many different data portals and platforms from other parties. Only in The Netherlands we easily count 20 major agricultural data platforms, and this number is growing every month. Worldwide, this number is easily 10 times bigger, if only looking at what was presented at ECPA in Budapest last July. The data farmers want to use, are temporal and spatial time series of soil, crop, yield, climate, biodiversity (pests, natural enemies and nature-inclusiveness) and crop management activities/interventions generated with different sensors on their farms. And they want to link with public data sources. Because data is stored on so many different portals and platforms, interoperability of the data is generally poor. It takes too much time and costs to bring the data together in a way that new information for strategic and tactical decision can be made with it. We even see that this is too difficult for knowledge institutes and service companies who want to generate new information for farmers and stakeholders. It is only economic for very large farms (10.000 ha or more) with a small number of crops.

How can we change the situation to the better? Several studies have shown the limitation that poor interoperability of data limits large scale use of data (see e.g. Precisielandbouw-4.0 report referenced). We have to organize better interoperability and sovereignty of data. Compliance with ICT standards, data space architectural principles and code of conducts for data use on farms is a must. Initiatives like AgriRouter help to make the required connections between portals and platforms that comply with standards, principles and sovereignty. Data ownership is less relevant than rights of use: the farmer should have the tools that he or she can decide if and with whom to share data generated on his or her farm, and under which conditions. If we are not able to organize this, then the promise of smart data use in agriculture contributing to more sustainable AgriFood is still far away. Only a few data platforms have the farmer central approach, but they are a minority so far (see FarmMaps and FarmCube initiatives).

The aforementioned improvement of the farmer’s data space is not only relevant for development of smart data use in AgriFood. Exchange of data between farms and governments should be improved too and requires the same kind of data space. In the future, farmers will have to show with data more and more that they comply with regulations on pesticides, nutrients, water and biodiversity. And for that they need similar, simple, trusted and cost-effective control farmer’s data spaces.
A major public-private intervention is needed if we want the improvement soon. ●

Dr. Ir. Corné Kempenaar
WUR & Aeres

You may also be interested in:

WUR launches major nematodes research project

Climate change and genetic selection have brought root-knot nematodes further north in Europe and made cyst nematodes more difficult to control. These emerging parasites threaten major crops such as potato. To get a clear picture of the proliferation of novel nematode species and populations and to find appropriate and sustainable solutions to these problems, WUR…

The British Potato Show returns to Harrogate in November

With the harvest season typically concluded and preparations for the new year in motion, British Potato 2023 will return on 22nd and 23rd November at the Yorkshire event centre in Harrogate. A date favoured by participants.

This year sees a record amount of trade stands, as the industry prepares to come together again. Emerging out…

Agritechnica focus on trends in potato technology

From 12-18 November Agritechnica takes place in Hannover, Germany. During the event there is a main focus on potatoes. Dr. Rolf Peters presents his vision on trends in potato technology. He states that potato growing has required a particularly high degree of flexibility from farmers in this year’s growing season due to the intensive change…

ADAPT field trials across Europe in search of multiple-stress tolerant potatoes

The European Potato Trade Association Europatat recently announced that for the Horizon 2020 EU project Accelerated Development of multiple-stress tolerAnt PoTato (ADAPT), trials are currently being conducted in the Netherlands, Serbia, and Austria.