Geo-information Management for Agribusiness

The EU-funded projects FutureFarm and agriXchange as well as the CAPIGI-network organise a joint conference from 24th until 26th November 2010 in Bonn (Germany). During this public conference, the emerging ICT and geo-information business in agriculture is to be discussed.

Novel solutions, recent discussions and new concepts for managing of production information and geo-information in agriculture and the related value added chain of production will be presented. Plenary sessions feature state of the art insight into relevant aspects of ICT for the agribusiness being presented by internationally renowned keynote speakers.

Separate paper sessions, workshops, poster sessions and exhibitions offered by the organising groups address more specific topics covering:
- Farm Management Information Systems
- Designing international standards for information exchange in agribusiness
- Standardisation and Interoperability
- Providing standards through Web Services
- Trends in Geo Information for farmers and administration
- Trends for ICT in agribusiness
- Emerging technologies in Ag-Software
- Emerging technologies in on-farm geo-information applications and software.

About 200 participants from all over the world are expected, bringing together industry (software companies, machine manufacturers, system developers) and scientists and governments active in both (geo-)information management and agriculture administration that share interests in the environment.
The key issue of the EU-funded project FutureFarm is to analyse future demands of farms towards their information management. From that it developed a concept for a new Farm Information Management Systems (FMIS) which will help to improve communication, crop management and documentation.

Standards from cross compliance, regional regulations or from buyers can automatically be implemented in the FMIS and its application in the daily planning and management of information on farm. Data intensive technologies such as Precision Farming and robotics provide a wealth of information and are specifically considered.

The overall objective of the EU-funded project agriXchange is to coordinate and support the setting up of sustainable network for developing a system for common data exchange in agriculture. This will be achieved by (i) establishing a platform on data exchange in agriculture in the EU, (ii) developing a reference framework for interoperability of data exchange, (iii) identifying the main challenges for harmonizing data exchange.

The CAPIGI-network brings together governments, industry and research to discuss the impact of geo-information in implementing agricultural politics. During this joint conference CAPIGI presents a workshop about the enabling role of geo-information (satellite data, soil sampling, crop monitoring, machine guidance, variable rate applications et cetera) in information management, both on-farm and in information chains. This CAPIGI workshop will present a state-of-the-art overview on innovations and research in geo-information sciences. These emerging technologies get illustrated with practice experiences and benefits in agricultural policy implementation.