Initial situation
Digitalisation and the internet are not only shaping our daily private and professional lives. Even in agriculture, it would be hard to imagine working without electronic controls, computers and the internet. Mechanisation, electronics and automation have brought a massive increase in efficiency to agriculture. Access to the internet has become a matter of course.
Against this background of the various problems, challenges, but also opportunities presented by digitalisation, a platform on "Digitalisation in Agriculture" was set up in spring 2017 at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, which in autumn 2018 drew up a report with recommendations for action on the topic of "Digitalisation in Agriculture - On the State of Development, the Challenges and the Benefits of New Technologies for Agriculture".
One of the recommendations for action was the "creation of a central data portal for agriculture". For this purpose, a survey of existing data-carrying registers of agriculturally relevant data and map information is being carried out in this preliminary project.
Objective
The aim of the project is to collect existing and relevant data for agriculture in order to develop implementation recommendations for a central data portal for agriculture.
Importance/justification of the need
There is currently no central data platform. The data relevant to agriculture is held by many organisations and on different systems and servers, some of which are difficult to find.
The advantages of a central data portal are complex. One advantage is the clarity of the available data and areas. The main USP of a future central data portal for agriculture therefore lies in the clear and standardised central data. This should avoid and reduce duplication of the same data. Moreover, due to the standardisation of the data, the user always receives only up-to-date information and data. Another advantage of the central future data portal is that data relevant to the respective branch of agriculture is also available in machine-readable form for an FMIS and is made freely available on the platform in the sense of Open Government Data.
Planned procedure, implementation
Reinhard Streimelweger (Francisco Josephinum) is in charge of the project management, Thomas Resl will coordinate the processes internally at AWI.
The project is divided into 4 work packages:
Work Package 1 - Project Management: The general objective of this work package is to manage and coordinate the entire project process. The project coordination serves as a link between all project partners involved and ensures continuous communication within the project. Work package 1 - Project management includes the general administration of the project.
Work package 2 - Collection and structuring of data includes a detailed presentation of the relevant data (where, which, in which file format) of a central data portal for agriculture in close cooperation with the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics (AWI).
Internet research on data of the institutions. Research in relevant publications, scientific papers and research reports.
Meetings with relevant institutions (AMA, AGES, A-WI, TGD, NOE Genetics, Zucht Data, ZAR, LK Austria, etc.) are planned.
It is planned to survey which institutions provide primary data (e.g. the Vienna Stock Exchange for Agricultural Products) for agriculture and which use secondary data.
After work package 2, a milestone "concept" has been set, which involves the joint evaluation of the data collected and a concept drawn up, as well as a decision on the continuation of the project. In addition to a continuation with work package 3, this evaluation can also lead to a termination of the project if the project partners AWI and JR come to the conclusion that a continuation of the project no longer seems reasonable.
Work package 3 - Preparation of an overview includes a structuring of the found and existing data in order to be able to guarantee a possible use for a later central data platform in the sense of the BMNT's platform "Digitisation in Agriculture".
Work package 4 - Preparation of a call for tenders: The main task in work package 4 is the preparation of a specification sheet by showing the following
in which form,
which data in the future
from which data provider
for which target group
should be made freely available on the future central data portal.
This will be done through data evaluation and interpretation by JR and AWI.
Project start: January 2019
Project end: December 2019
