CEMA experts contribute to the report “IoT and digital technologies for monitoring of the new CAP”

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New technologies, and ICT technologies in particular, are crucial for European farmers to address climate breakdown while optimising farm income, making farming more sustainable while competing in dynamic global markets.

As part of the Alliance of Internet of Things Innovation – AIOTI, CEMA experts have contributed to compile a paper on how IoT and digital technologies can help farmers for in the implementation of the new CAP.

This document produced by the Smart Farming Working Group from the AIOTI underlines that one of the key aspects where digital technologies are expected to make significant impact is in the modernisation of the policy implementation and the simplification of CAP support e.g. direct payments. The use of digital technologies for monitoring area-based CAP payments, including the possibility of completely replacing physical checks on farms with a system of automated checks based on analysis of Earth observation data (EGNOS and GALILEO) would be the way to go to simplify this burdensome task for farmers.

To achieve this challenge, the collection of data that modern agricultural machinery can deliver is crucial to facilitate the reporting tasks. Below a few examples of data that could be easily reported thanks to farm equipment use:

  • Data provided by automatic guidance systems with very high accuracy (less than 10cm) GNSS-based positioning or with RTK correction with 2 cm accuracy. This allows the creation of highly accurate field boundaries.
  • Data provided by modern harvesting equipment which creates yield maps that are automatically uploaded to the cloud and can easily be shared with paying agencies. This data includes not only the area, but also the yield and which crop has been grown.
  • As-applied digital maps of seed, fertilizer or pesticides are other highly accurate sources to prove the crop that has been grown and the field size.

The document addresses the topic from the perspective of technical feasibility and includes a set a of recommendations that focus on:

  1. Accuracy and measurement tolerance.
  2. In relation to Machine Learning technologies
  3. Semantic Interoperability
  4. Seamless integration
  5. User acceptance of technological solutions
  6. Information flow control and privacy protection
  7. Connectivity and the digital divide

To read the full paper you can CLICK HERE