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Pitch

Improve access to knowledge about the environment. It assists the agricultural sector to be sustainable and adapt with climate change.


Description

Summary

The vulnerability of agriculture in the context of CC is a major challenge. Focussing on how to improve adaptation is therefore of global importance. But adapting on changes requires knowledge about the direction of change, its impacts and intervention possibilities.

Knowledge about the environment and how to adapt to its changes is being generated continuously by universities around the globe. This gained knowledge needs to be spread to the base where actually needed for survival.

AgroInfo is a webpage to enhance this exchange. Scientists share their gained knowledge in a comprehensive way with the public, especially producers, and get their feedbacks as return. This can then again improve the quality of research.

AgroInfo is divided into different parts:

Part I: Database with general knowledge about processes in soil, water and air; different crops and animals; diseases and direct CC impacts. It should foster an overall understanding of the environment and its critical issues for agriculture.

Part II: Shortcut to access and combine knowledge of Part I. It connects emerging issues with the knowledge about involved processes and possible treatments.

Part III: Tool with interface to propose new perspectives and techniques in the agricultural sector. Choose the soil type, climate, critical issues, water availability and/or geographical area to search the database for possible farming opportunities with market opportunities.

Part IV: Introduction to the Internet of Things and Physical Internet. Aim is an improved management and reduction of irrigation and its impacts, improving food safety, storage and logistics of agricultural products.

Part V: Discussion forum to share knowledge and experience. Discussions are structured into different main topics, each supervised by a qualified person chosen by the main board.

AgroInfo will enhance information flows between all entities and strengthen independent information access and exchange of new approaches.


Category of the action

Mitigation/Adaptation, Changing public attitudes about climate change


What actions do you propose?

  1. Formation of main board for:
    1. Setup basic structure of webpage
    2. Fundraising
    3. Gaining, coordinating and advising supporters
       
  2. Supporters are: Universities, independent students, agricultural and environmental organisations, UN and govermental institutions
     
  3. Setup of different parts of the homepage

Creation of an online platform to share and give guidance of knowledge, facilitating the adaptation processes due to climate change and proposing new perspectives.

Setup of the Page

Part I - Information:

Provides general information about:

  • Agricultural and environmental processes
  • Different agricultural methods including their pro and cons
  • Crops, vegetables and other possible products to plant, including their physical requirements
  • Composting, dealing with hazardous materials, alternatives
  • Presentation of different farming systems: Permacultures, organic farming, conventional farming

…with all their advantages, disadvantages, difficulties and benefits (Bardi et al., 2013).

Each part of information will be tagged with certain key words and ranked according to their relevance for different topics. Part I provides the base for Part II & III. The information needs to be presented in an appropriate way for non-academic users.

This part is not meant to invent the wheel again but ensuring a high quality base of knowledge. Information might be taken from already existing sources, e.g. Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), Agrovoc, Agropedia, Semantic Technology Platform (STP), Wikipedia, World Wide Semantiv Web (WWSW), Linking Open Data (LOD) or simply connecting/accessing those knowledge sources. (Lukose, 2012)

The highest priority has the user-friendliness for non-academics.

Part II - Environmental Problems & possible solutions/treatments

Give guidance in figuring out the best way to cope with major issues, such as:

  • Soil degradation
  • Water scarcity
  • Fertilisation
  • Treatments of different wastes
  • Pesticide
  • Resistances

 

In this part, it is not only about providing information about the issue but giving new ideas for resolving it.

 

Part III – Interface

This is a core of the website to display different possible methods and agricultural products for different conditions. With more information about the range of products,

At first, an interface will ask for soil type, climate, water availability etc. to select suitable information according to features from the database. This data will then be divided into different topics: Cultivation will collect data for different crops suitable for those conditions; Precaution will deal with problems likely to occur and how to prevent them; Get inspired shows how others farm with the same conditions; and Discussions will link to topics in the discussion forum of interest.

 

Part IV – Agricultural Internet of Things

There is a paradigm shift in agriculture towards a cloud-based farm management system taking place, accepted and needed by producers (Kaloxylos et al., 2014). Also called precision or smart farming, the use of the Internet of Things in agriculture is emerging (Kaloxylos et al., 2012). Such a future internet-based networked production infrastructures like Cropinfra (Pesonen et al., 2014) allows improving the coordination and communication throughout the whole food value chain. This will impact information about quality, integrity and safety of food from producer up to the consumer. (Lehmann et al., 2012)

Using wireless sensor networks (WSN) technology for providing precise information about particular agricultural characteristics may facilitate and enable a more economical use of resources. (Diaz et al., 2011) This technique can be used for e.g. fertilisation, pest control, irrigation, greenhouses and viticulture.

Over 12% of produced food is lost in transit and 25% at retail before even reaching the consumerwww.physicalinternetinitiative.orgA great potential lies in reducing this number in combination with this new technologies. As a consequence, less food will be wasted and pressure on producer will decline.

 

Part V - Discussion Forum

A Platform to exchange and discuss ideas, guided by a mentor to ensure quality. Additionally, this mentor is in charge of transferring new discussions into the knowledge base.


Who will take these actions?

Just as this contest itself, this is a collective intelligence approach. Knowledge shall be exchanged and discussed; experiences added and function as a support provider to face the impacts of climate change.

The actions to be taken are:

  • Setup of the webpage and its technical maintenance.
  • Update of Part I
  • Supporting and ensuring quality in the discussion forum (Part VI)
  • Funding

 

These actions will be carried out by a main board. This consists of representatives of different universities and neutral organisations connected with agricultural and environmental issues.


Where will these actions be taken?

Globally. Depending on variable conditions and tasks, different knowledge and methods will be applied.


What are other key benefits?

  • Platform for alternative methods to adapt changing conditions.
  • Connecting the agricultural sector with the Internet of Things, water and resources can be saved
  • fImprovement of general knowledge, especially for producer with limited access to specific information.
  • Implementation of new technologies.
  • Independence from influential private players and offensive marketing strategies.


What are the proposal’s costs?

Not clear yet.


Time line

On a short term, AgroInfo needs to be created and established. New parts need to be added with emerging technologies and further demands. For the medium- long term, it will grow with time and maintain an international and transdisciplinary platform.


Related proposals

Climate Change Adaptation Toolkit – they focus only on the region of Waterloo and on a more general base.

Crossing the threshold: an integrated approach to transformational change – on a more general base.

Climate Communication

Municipal adaptation strategy to climate change in Costa Rica

Marine Agronomy improves food-water security


References

Bardi, U., El Asmar, T., & Lavacchi, A. (2013). Turning electricity into food: the role of renewable energy in the future of agriculture. 53, S. 224-231. Elsevier.

Diaz, S. E., Perez, J. C., Mateos, A. C., Marinescu, M.-C., & Guerra, B. B. (2011). A novel methodology for the monitoring of the agricultural production process based on wireless sensor networks. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 76, 252-265.

Kaloxylos, A., Eigenmann, R., Teye, F., Politopoulou, Z., Wolfert, S., Shrank, C., et al. (2012). Farm management systems and the Future Internet era. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 89, 130-144.

Kaloxylos, A., Groumas, A., Sarris, V., Katsikas, L., Magdalinos, P., Antoniou, E., et al. (2014). A cloud-based Farm Management System: Architecture and implementation. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 168-179.

Lehmann, R. J., Reiche, R., & Schiefer, G. (2012). Future internet and the agri-food sector: State-of-the-art in literature and research. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 89, 158-174.

Lukose, D. (2012). World Wide Semantic Weg of Agriculture Knowledge. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 11 (5), 769-774.

Pesonen, L. A., Teye, F. K.-W., Ronkainen, A. K., Koistinen, M. O., Kaivosoja, J. J., Suomi, P. F., et al. (2014). Cropinfra - An Internet-based service infrastructure to support crop production in future farms. Biosystems Engineering, 120, 92-101

Physical Internet Initiative: www.physicalinternetinitiative.org/