www.irstea.fr

Véronique Bellon-Maurel,

Director of Ecotechnology Dept

Director of #DigitAg Convergence Lab

AgGateThe French Agricultural Data Platform

Digital AgricultureConvergence Laboratory

“European Policy Perspectives on Data-intensive Agriculture & Food”

2nd Joint workshop of Big Data Europe & GODAN

31 March 2017

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ORIGINE OF AGGATE

Octobre 2015 Innovation Agriculture 2025 Report

By F Houllier (INRA Pdt), P Pringuet (AgroParisTech Pdt), P Lecouvey (DG ACTA) & JM Bournigal (Pdt IRSTEA)

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Octobre 2016

AgGate Portal

A mission from the Ministries of Agriculture and of Research about the setting up of a data portal to boost open innovation –

Jean-Marc Bournigal (IRSTEA Pdt)

3www.irstea.fr

Digital technologies in agriculture

79% french farmers acknowledge the usefulness of digital technologies

57% think there is a good return &

82% think they have generated productivity gains

85% estimate they have been responsible for input reduction

+110% : increase of use of professional applications by farmers who own a smartphone (bw 2013 and 2015)

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The data revolution in agriculture

Technologies for high precision data

acquisition

Technologies for high precision data

acquisition

Technologies for massive data acquisition

Technologies for massive data acquisition

Increase of Data storage

capacity

Increase of Data storage

capacity

Methods for Data processingMethods for

Data processing

New Decision

Aid Systems

New Decision

Aid Systems

New services to farmers New services to farmers

Adapting agricultural

advising services

Adapting agricultural

advising services

New AppsNew Apps New Web services

New Web services

Agricultural Big Data Big Data

Farm MachineryFarm MachinerySatellites

Satellites

RFIDRFID

Mobile SensorsMobile Sensors

UAVUAV SmartphonesSmartphonesWeather StationsWeather Stations

Ambiant sensorsAmbiant sensors

Robots

Robots

Sensors and connected objects

New knowledgeNew knowledge New indexesNew indexes New modelsNew models

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OBJECTIVES OF AGGATE

1. To Allow us to access, use and valorize data produced by public and private actors related to agriculture.

To facilitate open innovation for a data-driven agriculture

2- To create a win-win ecosystem to boost the development of innovative services in agriculture

3. To share the benefit if this new knowledge between actors of the value chain: farmers, advisors, companies

To do so it is urgent

= to create a unique acces to data : the AgGate portal

= to encourage data producers to share data :

= to encourage companies of the digital economy to work in agriculture

=> Win-win ecosystem management

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THE AGGATE PORTAL: 5 FUNCTIONNAL MODULES

A portal to acces various types of data

A digital maketplace for (free) Apps

A cloud for farmers

A showroom for commercial Decision Aid systems (+ DAS

« tripadvisor »)

A room for socializing

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MAIN CRITICAL POINTS (TECHNICAL ASPECTS)

General architecture: distributed databases and integration

Data virtualization & interconnexion

– Data integration: different natures & different sources.– Interconnexion need common referentiels Interconnexion « entry lock »: complementary to the research engine

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MAIN CRITICAL POINTS (TECHNICAL ASPECTS)

Security– Personal Data, monetary exchanges– Access rights to the platform (authentication) : modality of access

must be clearly defined

Anonymisation of pieces of data : problem with spatio-temporal data

Internal research engine (metadata & semantic issues) • To reduce the « noise » (avoid non-relevant answers) • To avoid non-response (because of bad linkage)

⇒Additional research is needed on agricultural ontologies

To be dealt with during the data portal construction phase

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MAIN CRITICAL POINTS (ORGANISATIONAL ASPECTS)

Which structure for the portal: NOT public (association? Limited company?)

Governed by a small number of organisations linked to agriculture (data producers) : cooperatives, banks, insurances, farm machinery manufaturers…

A strategic orientation committee to warrantee conditions of use, deontology, ethics & the strategy for the ecosystem management

=> it must include representants of:

• Farmers

• Public bodies (reaserch, ministries)

• Experts of digital economy

A small team (5 persons) to

–Inventory accessible data & negociate other data with providers

–Help data providers for supply the portal with data (legal and technical issues)

–Make the portal evolve

–Ensure the communication & operational management of the ecosystem (challenge, hackathons, etc)

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FIRST ESTIMATED COSTS

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• Human Resources (salaries +environment) : 750 à 800 K€ /an 4 - 6 FTE : Director, Data manager, Marketing, Project Manager, Assistant

• Construction Phase: 4,8 - 5,4 M€ / 3 years (inc salaries) Platform building Additional researches (ontologies & referentials) Platform (website hosting, data hosting) Legal assistance Ecosystem management (challenges, etc) Salaries 2,2 - 2,4 M€

• Steady state Phase : 1,1 - 1,25 M€ / year ( inc salaries) Platform (website hosting, data hosting) Legal assistance Ecosystem management (challenges, etc)

Salaries 750 à 800 K€

2,6 to 3 M€

350 à 400 K€

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LINKS TO OTHER PROJECTS (FRANCE)

Research

Digital Pool among farmersA data challenge with competitiveness clusters

1st – 2nd of July : Finals in Montpellierwww.digitag-challenge.fr

Farmers must be at the process heart => #ImagineAgri

Actions to create the win-win ecosystem

Digital Agriculture Convergence Laboratory

www.hdigitag.fr

Linked to the Digital Agriculture Convergence Lab, a 10 M€ project, started 01 / 01/ 2017 (56 PhD thesis, 150 master students, 18 years of Post-doc students, visiting scientists, a graduate school…)

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CONCLUSION : AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT

1. To create a collective & collaborative project involving public & private actors of the agricultar sector

2. To open it to new actors , eg from the digital economy

3. To benefit from the digital revolution in the farms to create and SHARE value (to avoid value capture by big operators eg GAFAs)

=> data science as a competitiveness lever

4. To create TRUST about sharing added value and about data security

5. To target an international scale: European deployment (relevance of ontology issues) through eg Digital platform hub / e-infrastructure ( extension of e-Rosa project ? see eROSA.aginfra.eu)

The ambition is: