Presentation on the Design of a System for Infomration Transfer to Reduce Administrative Burdens in the Agrifood sector. The plan is part of the EU research project MEF4CAP as a case study. Presented at the Igls Forum 2021

1. Design of a System for Information
Transfer to Reduce Administrative
Burdens in the agrifood sector
Krijn Poppe
Hans Vrolijk, Roeland van Dijk
Presentation for the 15th International
European Forum on System Dynamics and
Innovation in Food Networks
February 2021

2. Main research question
• Given the ICT developments
• and broadening needs for indicators for monitoring and
evaluation in the (updated) CAP:
What are the changes in the information availability and
data exchange in the agricultural sector
and how can these data be organised to support the
monitoring and evaluation of new policies?

3. Approach (and content of the presentation)
• Current information flows at farm level (focus: NL)
• Design principles for a prototype for data management to
facilitate the use of data for monitoring and evaluation
• Outline for a functional design and proto-type called
SITRA
• Design the governance and business model of SITRA
• Discuss our approach and outline the next steps

4. Current data flows

5. Diagnosis of the situation
• Integration of accounting and farm management
systems still problematic
• Digitalisation of invoices (i.e. Edi-circle, Unifiedpost,
Agrobox, Basecone, Blue10) facilitate robotic
accounting
• Sharing of data and access to government data
facilitate developments of farm systems (i.e. CropR,
Agrovision) and chain information systems
• Internet of things facilitates information services from
technology suppliers, advisory services and food
processors: ‘smart farming’
• Digital platforms combine data to create services for
users

6. Requirements for future solution
• Blending of farm management information and accounting systems and
satellite and sensor data for better indicators or less manual data input;
• Chain information systems become more important, double data entry by
farmers should be avoided;
• Permission to utilise data pertaining to individual farms must be provided by
farmers;
• The problem of obtaining permission to share data need to be resolved by
giving farmers control of their data and involve them in the governance of
the platform;
• Significant improvements needed in the technical and semantic
interoperability of systems;
• Harmonised indicators are needed, central management of coding systems
is attractive;
• Not everything can be monitored in a technical way;
• For some monitoring it is possible to move from random sampling towards
data gathering from all farms (big data approach);
• Area based and farm based sampling both have a role, explore connection

7. Design for future data flows

8. Functional design: 6 main functions of a
proto-type SITRA platform dashboard

9. Governance: towards a different type
of platform – a utility for all farmers ?
Agricultural Technology Platform Data Sharing Platform for Sustainability Management
Operated by one provider (John Deere, Claes,
Lely Dairy Robot, Cosun Beet Company))
Operated by a farmers data cooperative for farm
management information / certification / accounting
Users: large farmers, contractors
Data linked to business secrets, IPR
Users: relevant for all farmers to deal with “red tape”
and run sustainability programs / eco-schemes
Data in family farms linked to privacy
Risks that farmers face:
• Industrialisation, increase scale
• Farmer becomes franchiser
• Vendor lock in
• Lack of competition
Imperfect market: Farm oriented dashboard does not
exist. Why do FMIS / Accounting software not scale up
or ERPs not scale down:
• A business model problem?
• How to mix public and private data?
Potential government reaction:
• Promote start ups
• Support frontier research like AI
• Regulate algorithms (sustainability)
• Regulate competition (e.g. data
portability / number of vendors)
Potential government reaction:
• Create a dashboard with data locker for
farmers as infrastructure (utility) governed as
a data trust/cooperative
• Also as countervailing power
• Oblige the use of UBL in paper work

10. Discussion and future steps
• Digitalisation and robotic accounting can provide
excellent opportunities to provide data on indicators
for monitoring and evaluation of policies
• that are not directly observable from outside of the farm
• and are auditable as they are linked to the financial
accounting.
• Platform economy is being created but farmers lack
a good dashboard for optimal data use with good
data management
• To investigate the feasibility of this solution, we will
engage with a group of organic farmers in the FADN

11. Organic farming as a testbed:
• Monitoring and evaluation requirements are high
• Transparency is an important issue
• Supply chain and management information systems are less
frequent
• Interest from SKAL - the Dutch organic certification and
inspection authority
• The FADN is an important tool in M&E of the CAP
• Farmers in the FADN already supply a lot of data
• Links with Farm to Fork communication: 25% organic area,
Farm Sustainability Data Network.
• Create dashboard to provide information for monitoring and
evaluation but also mass balances for certification and
inspection

12. Thank you for your attention
Presentation by:
Krijn Poppe
kjpoppe@hccnet.nl
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020
research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101000662.
The content of this publication exclusively reflects the author's view and the
Research Executive Agency and the Commission are not responsible for any
use that may be made of the information it contains.
@MEF4CAP
www.mef4cap.eu

13. Project introduction: objective
MEF4CAP will deliver a roadmap for future
monitoring
• where the needs of different stakeholders are identified
and addressed
• and the potential of different technologies is fully exploited
• while minimizing the associated cost and administrative
burden
• and optimizing the value of the collected data