Within these pages, we are excited to showcase our progress towards achieving our main goal which is no other than demonstrating the value of agri-data sharing to boost the data economy in agriculture.

This edition is dedicated to outlining significant steps made during the last semester of the project (M13-M18). M18 marked the end of the first period of the project and was characterised by several technical and non-technical achievements. Herein, we will delve into one of the major technical milestones achieved within the first 18 months of the project, the Reference Architecture of DIVINE ecosystem. We will also list some of our latest news and events.

Stay tuned for more updates! Follow us on our social media accounts (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube), visit our website to gain more insights and contact us at DIVINE-info@lists.cn.ntua.gr.

The efforts made during this first period of the DIVINE project resulted in various significant achievements. To be able to support the diverse agri-data sharing ecosystem that we are creating, our architecture must facilitate cooperation among all stakeholders, including a smooth data flow and ensure speed, accuracy, and profit for all parties involved. Interoperability and security are also crucial to provide a reliable system and a pleasant and fruitful experience to users and policy makers.

Driven by the DIVINE objectives, we have defined the DIVINE ecosystem Reference Architecture, taking into consideration State-of-the-Art technologies and architectural frameworks. We specified our own technical system requirements, aligning with relevant model architectures and using experiences and best practices from previous and ongoing relevant project platforms like DEMETER, extending and detailing the initial proposed architecture. The final architecture is refined through technical development and initial pilot validation.

Key elements include identification and sourcing of data using advanced IoT sensors, utilization of appropriate ontologies and interoperability standards for seamless data exchange, implementation of data governance, security, and protection measures, scalability and performance achieved through distributed computing and caching mechanisms, data integration and semantic interoperability techniques for data semantics harmonization and analytics tools for predictive modelling, trend analysis, anomaly detection, and machine learning, all presented in a user-friendly manner.

The architecture leverages GAIA-X and IoT-A capabilities for innovative IoT solutions and ensures compliance with industry standards, data sovereignty, intellectual property rights, and ethical considerations. Collaboration with various organizations promotes interoperability, innovation, and knowledge sharing. The result is a comprehensive reference architecture fostering data-driven decision-making, collaboration, and innovation in agriculture.

The components of the Architecture are: the Agri Stakeholder Open Collaboration Space (SOCS), where farmers, experts and other stakeholders come together to collaborate and share knowledge; the DIVINE Agora, where users can browse and get access to all the registered DIVINE and DIVINE-enabled resources and developers can integrate and deploy the aforementioned applications; and the DIVINE Enabling Services which are partner-provided entities and services wrapped to use common data models and get accessed via the DIVINE Dashboard and the respective open APIs. The common data models refers to the Agriculture Information Model+ (AIM+), which offers a metadata model and a number of ontologies composing a common semantic data model.

The final reference architecture is described by various views and viewpoints, namely high-level view, functional view, process view, data and deployment view. The key considerations and underlying assumptions in relation to the design and deployment of the DIVINE Reference Architecture are as follows: Data security is a key concern. DIVINE will also offer a suite of data analytics tools which will allow users explore trends in their data and benchmark them against other data sources. Decision Support is critical for all stakeholders, as is visualisation. Data sharing is, of course, the heart of our ecosystem, the key to all envisioned transactions and the cornerstone of the evolution of modern agriculture. Public data sources and open data usage will depend heavily on the efficient application of FAIR principles and the establishment of trust. It is unrealistic to state that we will share all data openly, but we will be as open as we can, utilizing methods such as anonymisation, aggregation, and summarization for sensitive data sets.

All key considerations and underlying assumptions in relation to the design and deployment of the DIVINE Reference Architecture are outlined. Data Security is a key concern. DIVINE will also offer a suite of data analytics tools which will allow users explore trends in their data and benchmark them against other data sources. Decision Support is critical for all stakeholders, as is visualisation. Data sharing is, of course, the heart of our ecosystem, the key of all envisioned transactions and the cornerstone of the evolution of modern agriculture. Public data sources and open data usage will depend heavily on the efficient application of FAIR principles and the establishment of trust. It is unrealistic to state that we will share all data openly, but we will be as open as we can, utilizing methods such as anonymisation, aggregation, and summarization for sensitive data sets.

Finally, a very important aspect is that we differentiate between reference and pilot implementations. DIVINE provides reference implementations which pilots and other users are free to extend and adapt. Initial extensions proved valuable have been incorporated in the final version of the reference implementation. This open-source-like approach aims to avoid vendor lock-in and alienation of stakeholder groups.

Having released the Reference Architecture, we can the immediate focus on the final development, deployment, and testing of our proposed ecosystem, in order to validate our work.

 

DIVINE has organized two plenary meetings in the last six months. These meetings were pivotal in discussing preliminary results, milestones achieved, ongoing challenges, and strategies to overcome them. During these sessions, we aligned project activities and planned our next steps to achieve our ultimate goal: boosting the data economy in agriculture.

The first meeting was held virtually on November 14th and 22nd, 2023. The discussions focused on the progress and preliminary results of the four pilots, emphasizing the need for 4-layer interoperability (technical, semantic, organizational, and legal) to support the ongoing pilots.

The second plenary meeting took place from March 20th to 22nd, 2024, in Rome, Italy. During this meeting, we analysed the insightful feedback from the first round of pilots and discussed enhancements for our applications and services in preparation for the upcoming second round.

Our Slovenian partners, ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster and KGZS, were very active during the last 6 months of the project and promoted DIVINE at several national events and meetings.

• First, DIVINE was successfully presented at the “Future of Digitalization of Farms” event, that was hosted by KGZS and took place in Volčja Draga, Slovenia, at the end of November. Tomaz Bokan from ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster delivered an outstanding presentation on the innovations developed within our project and the transformative potential they have in reshaping farming and agriculture.
• Secondly, representatives from KGZS and ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster visited the organizers and moderators of benchmarking study groups at the Austrian Landwirtschaftskammer in Carinthia to gather further information on software requirements and exchange insights from Slovenian and Austrian implementations of benchmarking study groups. This innovative approach constitutes a specialized form of advisory assistance tailored for small groups of farmers engaged in similar types of production within the agricultural sector.
• Daniel Copot also presented DIH AGRIFOOD Data Space (DADS), which is part of the DIVINE ADSE, at a consultation event organised by the Slovenian Ministry of Digital Transformation, that brought together more than 100 representatives of local communities, policy representatives, Slovenian attaches in Brussels, academia and industry representatives. Valuable information was exchanged among highly relevant representatives and DIVINE approaches regarding the digital transformation of the food systems through data spaces received positive feedback.
• Finally, DIVINE was featured at the workshop hosted by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of University of Maribor, focusing on "Farming Advisory Service and the Role of Digital Tools in Farming".  KGZS and ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster presented their groundbreaking work within Horizon Europe DIVINE Project. They delved into the development of tools for benchmarking study groups among milk producers and pig farmers, while also exploring the potential of agronomy data sharing and the emerging data economy in agriculture. Their insights illuminated the pivotal role of agricultural advisory services in disseminating knowledge about digital technologies to farmers, paving the way for enhanced efficiency and sustainability in farming practices.

International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) has produced a series of tech talks introducing various components that are also part of the DIVINE Agricultural Data Space Ecosystem. In this respect, Anil Turkmayali form IDSA delivered a tech talk on the Dataspace protocol, its functionalities and some technical details involved. This protocol is a key element in DIVINE, ensuring both intra- and inter-dataspace interoperability. More specifically, it plays a crucial role in supporting our project's strategic objective - to develop the Agricultural Data Space Ecosystem which envisions the seamless integration of multiple dataspaces that host diverse types of agridata. The respective video is uploaded here on IDSA’s YouTube channel.

DIVINE has been featured in the January issue of Irish Farmers Monthly. In an insightful article, Professor Kevin McDonnell from University College Dublin delved into the transformative impact of DIVINE on the agricultural landscape, explaining how it can empower cereal farmers with cutting-edge digital tools for informed decision-making. Professor McDonnell emphasized the shift from intuitive decision-making based on farmers' experience to leveraging digitized data. This transition could enable farmers to make optimal decisions, fostering increased efficiency, sustainability, and profitability in their operations.

In his words: "One example of research currently underway here is the DIVINE project – an EU-funded project looking at how we can develop a fully digital model for cereal production. This would then offer a tool that can be used by farmers/agronomists and researchers to better understand all the variables and options when managing the farm. So, if our head researcher at Lyons farm wanted to decide on which crop would be best to grow, he should be able to go through all the relevant data on a laptop – looking at soil terrain, crop varieties, weather conditions etc. – and be guided towards the best decision. We are trying to build the right tools to do that. This project involves walking through every single step of growing season, capturing the data and offering an interactive tool to help farmers use that information."

Are you curious to learn more? Read the full article here.