eFarmer ~ CAP-related and Country-specific eContent Management

SZIE eFarmer Research Group Professional Contribution to the Project

EFITA/WCCA Joint Conference 2005Vila Real, Portugal, 26-28 July 2005

Project Objectives Strategic objective: Improving and enhancing the flow

of information within CAP, relating to various aid (priorities: SAPS, national top-up and LFA) options from state administration to farmers of V-4 countries.

Technical objective: Implementing user friendly eCMS and form flow generator modules to support efficient and sustainable CAP content transformation.

Supplementary objectives: Introduction of web services to assist farmers Electronic claim submission using eFarmer content (rules,

manuals, form templates, etc.) as input source, Establishment of pilot groups of eFarmer user network

demonstrating eFarmer content communication services for farmer community.

Based on: eFarmer project documentation

Business Model

Source: eFarmer project documentation

Members of the project consortium

Tasks of SZIE Research Group CAP- and CoAP-specific content transformation

(emphatic parts: SAPS, national top-ups and LFA): Exploring, extracting and structuring the primary

information sources in the EU and Hungary. Exploring the needs of the potential users Developing the additional value-added services

Isolating the generic and country-specific aspects of content management (Almost every kind of knowledge items/services - like data-visualisation based on FAO- and FADN-services, usergroup-specific document services – might have both generic and country-specific character.)

Generic solutions Classes of potential primer content (numeric

data, text, multimedia objects): Textual: e.g. press monitoring for V4-related news Textual: e.g. official documents of aid claiming Numeric: e.g. FADN-, MIS-, FAO-, CAPRI-data

for benchmarking Multimedia: e.g. online stored fragments of radio

broadcasting, movie-clips of TV broadcasting Appearance of this content:

User group-specific document/data providing (a special kind of newsletters – edited by experts)

Online reports (data visualisation – pre-defined and/or self-structured)

Information value-added

Saving of time: the necessary documents/data can be found quicker through integration of relevant items.

Enhanced comprehensiveness of results: all relevant documents/data can be found through systematic exploring of items.

Enhanced reliability of results: the overall quality of documents is better trough checking of different sources.

In a content management project, extra utility (information value-added) can be established through:

Legitimation Information sources (research institutes, professional

journals etc.): The strategy (integrating and structuring) is acknowledged and supported.

Information and Extension System Providers („mediators”): Automated claim submission on the base of detailed (official)

farm data for accounting for „large-scale” farms already covered, real assistance is needed: GAEC, traceability, QA, cross compliance

Supporting accounting and planning for small farmers is non-existing yet (despite of general prescription)

Primary users (potential efarmers, farmers, authorities, labour organisations): The experiences coming from questionnaires are (will be) taken into account during the development process.

Stakeholders’ needs

Providing the necessary information for the cross-compliance, GAEC, QA, traceability and business planning.

Development of claiming system is the duty of the government, it should be a public service (cf. Federal state of Hessen)

Roles of extension system might be: Guarantee the necessary primary data for IACS-controls (traceability,

QA, GAEC, data integration with GIS etc.) Supporting the planning processes (estimation of prices and yields,

technology-scenarios, optimisation according to subsidy, GM, income, cost, labour force, etc.)

Primary users (farmers, advisors)

IT Service Providers

Authorities, public organisations Completing the extension services by competent experts, Using PPP-oriented approach.

Several thousands of knowledge items (documents, news, multimedia objects, projects, services) are catalogised at this time.

Sources: MARD, PA, CSO, Online Catalogue of Agricultural Research Institutes, IAMO, fnsea news abstracts etc.

Numerous homogeneous knowledge groups (according to e.g. IACS codes, agricultural activities) are set up.

Navigation supporting tools: Keyword and full-text search Multi-dimensional document-trees

Achievements I - eLibrary

Achievements II – Online reports Tens of thousands of numeric data is available Sources: FAO (V4), CAPRI (HUN), FADN

(HUN), CSO (HUN), MIS (HUN) Main services:

Online report wizard (e.g. land usage) „Offline” pivot table service (e.g. forecasting the

stock change of pigs) Online expert system (e.g. supporting part time

farmers in taxation) „Offline” expert system (e.g. plot selection of

sugarbeet production)

Conclusion In the first stage we explored the data-assets of the Hungarian and

some of the international agricultural portals within the multi-dimensional content providing framework.

The existing primary information supply of agricultural information sources (as expected) in not equal to the existing/potential needs of farmers.

Therefore, exploring and processing of the primary knowledge items by experts seems to be necessary in the second stage of the project, the main points should be: Document (e.g. certificates, contracts, invoices) repository of

“small” farmers in order to support their detailed accountancy. GAEC-, traceability-, QA-, cross compliance-based

(technology-, or product-specific) information filtering. Developing expert systems, which are able to support solving

typical problems in user-specific way (e.g. availability of certain aid schemes).

Education of efarmers (as information brokers) according to the following principles: “learning by doing/ tele-coaching”, “independent structuring of existing knowledge items”, “independent exploring the new knowledge”.

Thank you for your attention!

For more information, please, visit:

http://miau.gau.hu/efarmer