5 minute read
Driving Digital Transformation in the
Stories about transformational innovation are more believable and compelling when they involve an urgent and escalating issue. Ireland’s Agriculture sector competes not on quantity, but on quality. With an ever increasing demand on food production, to help feed the worlds growing population, we are starting to see the pressure this is placing on our natural environment.
The current pandemic has led to the wide recognition of the importance of digital transformation for our immediate economic recovery and future resilience. With a strong focus on reshaping the agri-food sector through the use of agricultural technologies (AgriTech), with applications of intelligent secure Internet of Things (IoT) networks, artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC) and a strong focus on datadriven analytical techniques.
The Irish Government recently announced funding of €40 million for a north-south research programme under the Shared Island Fund. The package is intended to support deepening links between higher education institutions (HEIs), researchers and research communities on the island of Ireland – and is the single largest allocation from the €500 million fund to date. The aim is to build on the cooperation which already exists between partner institutions on the issues that matter to us including agriculture and food product development.
Walton Institute is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for ICT research and innovation and one of the most successful ICT research centres in Ireland, securing funding of €120 million under EU Programmes. As a multidisciplinary ICT centric research institute, Walton Institute’s research vision is to utilise ICT that can be expanded towards various applications including future healthcare, transport, environmental protection, cybersecurity, energy and agriculture.
The precision agriculture specialist area within Walton Institute focuses on investigating novel paradigms of how technology will transform food production to meet humanity’s demands in the future. The team at Walton works on both national and international projects, applying their expertise to areas of great impact, ranging from novel communication paradigms that will derive and relay information about dairy farming, interoperable smart farming-IoT based platforms, to the digitisation of Europe’s agricultural sector by fostering an Irish ecosystem that will contribute to innovative excellence, sustainability and success.
DEMETER
DEMETER is a Horizon 2020 project which aims to lead the digital transformation of Europe’s agri-food sector through the rapid adoption of advanced IoT technologies, data science and smart farming, ensuring its long-term viability and sustainability. Twenty real-world pilot projects are running within DEMETER and grouped into five pilot clusters: arable crops, irrigated crops, fruit and vegetable production, livestock, and the supply chain. These pilots, running in 18 European countries, demonstrate and evaluate how agricultural innovations benefit from interoperability mechanisms. Led by Walton Institute, the project consists of 60 partners bringing together farmers and farmers’ organisations, academic institutions, and small and large public and private organisations representing the demand and supply side of the agricultural value chain. For more information, visit www.h2020-demeter.eu
SmartAgriHubs
SmartAgriHubs is a €20m H2020 project that aims to realise the digitisation of European agriculture by fostering an agricultural innovation ecosystem dedicated to excellence, sustainability and success. The consortium of over 164 partners in the European agri-food sector includes a diverse network of startups, SMEs, business and service providers,
technology experts and end-users. The development and adoption of digital solutions is achieved by a tight ecosystem of 140 Digital Innovation Hubs embedded within 9 Regional Clusters. Walton are the Regional Cluster lead for Ireland and the UK. The SmartAgriHubs project serves as a catalyst for gamechanging innovations in smart farming techniques. It aims to deliver 80 new digital solutions to the market, raise €30M additional funding from public, regional, national and private sources, and plans to help digitise over two million farms spread across Europe. Register your organisation to join the SmartAgriHubs community via www.smartagrihubs.eu
NIVA
New IACS Vision in Action (NIVA) is a H2020 project that aims to modernise IACS by making efficient use of digital solutions and e-tools, by creating reliable methodologies and harmonised data sets for monitoring agricultural performance while reducing administrative burden for farmers, paying agencies and other stakeholders. Walton Institute, with their partners Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture Food & Marine (DAFM) are tasked with designing and developing an application for mobile devices to facilitate a farmer to upload a geotagged photograph as supporting evidence to scheme applications. The ‘Geotagged Photo Application’ will be an integral part of the Area Monitoring System which will be a component of the Integrated Administration & Control System in the CAP post 2020. The geo-tagged app, AgriSnap has been tested across Europe by end-users over the last 12 months and is now being used in Ireland for a new pilot scheme (REAP) for farmers and advisors to send geo-tagged photos to DAFM.
The TSSG Technology Gateway
The “TSSG Technology Gateway” at the Walton Institute supports start-ups, micro SMEs and scaling SMEs by delivering technology solutions through collaboration on projects which are close to the market needs of the Irish industry. Walton has a proven track record in researching and developing digital platforms, content and applications for the AgriTech space.
AgriNet supply market-leading grassland, stock and accounts software that allows dairy and dry stock farmers across Ireland make the right management decisions for more profitable farming, as well as ensuring legislative compliance. The team at Walton helped porting their application to a new technology stack, adding new mapping functionality and the best approach for new application integrations.
GrassTech offers a diverse range of dairy services and products to the agricultural sector which assist the progressive farmer to achieve greater productivity in their farm business. Walton focused on solutions for rendering of geo-spacial maps on mobile and desktop platforms (crossplatform), explored the existing mockups and analysed or proposed alternatives where appropriate.
To learn more about the work of the Walton Institute visit www.waltoninstitute.ie
Hazel Peavoy, Strategic Business Manager, Walton Institute.
