e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture

Today more than ever, agriculture, including up-stream and downstream sectors, face the overriding challenge of developing a sustainable connection between consumer protection, animal-welfare, quality assurance, and economic and ecological sustainability. In view of this, this paper aims to analyse how information technology can contribute to this aim. The following areas must be analysed: the information needs of operators (within and outside their field of operation), the requirements of management, and the data and information requests made of the agricultural and food industry which result from quality assurance and traceability processes, and from legislative stipulations. This demand for information must be compared with information availability (both technical feasibility and practical application), in order to enable deficits to be identified. A synthesis is then used with the aim of allowing urgent development needs to be formulated, for the needs to be categorised based on technical and organizational parameters, and for possible avenues of research, training and consulting to be indicated. In summary, it can be stated that, other than a few exceptions, the need for information in the classic fields of processes, enterprise sectors and companies, and also the need in these areas seen over space and time, has grown and will continue to do so. The requirements of value added chains at sectoral level create a clear net increase in information requirements, most notably due to the pertinent regulatory and legal frameworks and the justifiably higher quality assurance requirements. With regard to the current potential, it can be confirmed that, from a technological perspective, precision agriculture can deliver almost unlimited data availability. However, on the other hand, there are comparatively large deficits in the fields of analysis and goal-oriented preparation and interpretation of this data, i.e. in the field of software and its application, as well as for the preparation and making of decisions. Countless studies have demonstrated that at both German and international level, the degree of penetration in agriculture and agriculture-related enterprises in respect of hardware infrastructure is high and is continuing to grow. In contrast, there is a need for improvement with regard to the implementation of e-business strategies and, in general, in the field of IT training. Technical and organisational requirements can be distinguished based on IT-relevant development requirements. Key technical development requirements include the optimisation of networks, the integration of distributed data, functions and systems, the development and implementation of data standards and the general dissemination of key technologies (e. g, RFID). From the organisational point of view, e-business must be developed further, and data protection and security requirements must be clarified; further training campaigns aimed at the relevant stakeholders are also necessary. With regard to the consequences for research, training and consulting, it can be clearly stated that research must be more interdisciplinary and must involve cost-benefit analysis. In addition to this, the factors influencing acceptance, as well as the possibilities and limits for the integration of IT into chains should be studied. Efforts in the field of training should have as a primary goal the increase of human capital in the fields of research, consulting and practice. Targeted advice should aim to promote acceptance of information technologies as well as showing the potential and advantages.