The Challenge

Climate change is heavily impacting the Agrifood sector, more fiercely than others.  Traditional, experience-based practises can no longer tackle changing weather conditions and the consequential impact on crop health. Pest seasonality has changed due to  temperature variations. while water stress is an issue in permanent cultivations.

Farmers have started investing in digital tools to mitigate weather dependent-risks. IoT has made it possible for low-cost sensor systems to perform remotely by feeding cloud applications and algorithmic models with data that alert farmers of forthcoming challenges. However, data needs appropriate interpretations conducted by a field expert such as a farm advisor that often is not physically available and thus cannot be blindly trusted.

Another challenge for the Smart Farming industry is not to create additional data silos. Farmers are currently reluctant to share their data mainly because there are no (business) initiatives. The market is missing on-demand subscription-based data access that facilitates an expert to provide data-driven consultation on when to apply a pesticide or a fertiliser or for a cooperative to offer its data to the nearest smart city to adjust green space’ irrigation according to the area real-time precipitation. The real-life examples of meaningful data exhaustion are countless, either within the sector or cross-domain.

The Solution

AgriSpace4Trust aims to integrate i4Trust Marketplace Framework working with FIWARE’s Smart Models and linked data following the latest NGSI-LD specifications. In addition, iSHARE integration to a third-party SensorPassport implementation will build trust within the community.  SensorPassport includes functionalities on validating sensor operations, credibility, access, authorization and account control through iSHARE integration.

AgriSpace4Trust proposes to create data hubs supported by i4trust data space that exploit local weather stations or agro-environmental sensors and open them to a broader community of local users. This way, opinion leaders and tech-savvy farmers will invest in buying specialised equipment, and data can be shared at will, including cooperatives and farm advisors/ agronomists.

Moreover, AgriSpace4Trust will create an open-source Software-Agent Enablement Framework to interoperate with various vendor data models to eliminate the possibility of vendor lock-ins or business discontinuities. The replicability of AgriSpace4Trust, therefore, can act as a trusted intermediary layer that Agi-tech providers have to follow to ensure a solutions’ interoperability and exploitability in the long term.

Business projections – scalability

AgriSpace4Trust to federate with Open Data portals to offer:

• Green Space data services for Smart Cities irrigation/ irrigation demand management 
• Smart Weather Forecasting correcting models for region-specific services 
• Extreme Weather events’ forecasting
• Zero Hunger or Food Waste initiatives exploiting yield prediction and unexploited harvest data 

AgriSpace4Trust backed implementations to scale across the EU through its federation with i4Trust Marketplace Covering new niche sub-domains of the sector (e.g., carbon farming). Their data owners or providers are compensated service creators exploiting revenue-creating IoT solutions. AgriSpace4Trust realises data circularity and a new and extended data lifecycle and offers up/reskilling of stakeholders towards digital transformation.