“AGROffice complete” the “SaRAM”

Preamble

Globally there are hundreds of millions of farmers/foresters, some of them well-, but most too week educated to manage their enterprises economically and in a sustainable way or even to have appropriate growth. National regulations, whereby all producers have to comply with, and EU/US-national regulations that are relevant for companies exporting into these regions are additional barriers. And there are environmental problems and globalisation that makes it necessary for ALL farmers in the future to be involved in optimising the production of food or biomass and also get more responsibility for sustainable development. Furthermore FAO and World Bank highlight the issue of paying farmers for environmental work. On the other side, there are scientists with enormous know-how and access to data that farmers would need. So it is obvious that there is need to provide this know-how and these data to them.

ICT solutions for a future, managed by farmers and foresters producing food/feed, biomass and a healthy environment

We are  pleased to inform, that after an intensive developing phase with worldwide thousands of best practise installations we have launched the holistic agro-software solution, called

“AGROffice complete” -  the holistic approach for rural area management

It is a GIS-based integrated technology for farmers, farm advisors, agro-logisticians, for forestry, ecological tasks, rural community management, for risk and land management, or in general for the whole rural area management.

AGROffice complete is a planning-, calculation-, documentation- evaluation and advisory tool and users will cash in on it, by

o      a better management,
o      optimising the whole work and production process
o      having ongoing direct access to the latest expert know-how
o      complying easily with EU- and regional legislations
o      achieving a higher valuation of produced products
o      a reduced bureaucratic work
o      environmental care-taking
o      automatically  reporting
o      high value advise
o      significant costs reductions especially in the field of logistics 
o      intercompany comparisons etc.

AGROffice complete enables and boosts as holistic approach

• education,
• capacity building,
• knowledge transfer,
• rural IT-access,
• land management,
• integrated public private partnership models.

AGROffice complete provides tools for single users (agriculture, forestry, rural experts), user groups and for advisors. Latter ones will profit by having finally a software for managing up to several hundred agricultural enterprises with just one licence. Next to high-level advisory service to farmers they are able to create business plans, to analyse data for factorings or insurance purposes and they will play a crucial part in spatial planning and rural area management questions by forming the bottom up element of an integrated approach.

Public authorities and science organisations  have to be integrated from the very beginning into the project  and will benefit by a faster transfer of know how toward practitioners and get the chance to integrate farmers in total land management needs.

ICT partners will get a platform to develop on top of the basic tools (WinGIS, WinMAP, DokuPlant, ForestOffice, HuntingGIS, CommunityGIS, PipeGIS, LoGIStics, FOMUMIIS) their local requirements
Other direct or indirect beneficiaries who are enabled to be integrated with their needs are traders, export organisations, banks, insurance companies, sellers of agro-machines, sellers of agro-chemicals, et.al.

Details to “AGROffice complete”

Part of “AGROffice complete” is “WinGIS”, a PROGIS´ GIS development, an objectoriented, hybrid and open geographic information platform as the fundament for a total rural area management using satellite images, orthoimages and/or vector data. Applications for farmers, for foresters, for farm advisory services, for logistics needs, rural community needs, for ecological tasks and for risk- and land management were developed on top. The technology has a modular structure and comprises today the following products:

DokuPlant: The agriculture-software tools, integrates technologies like GIS, database, real-time management and expert information. It is used for

1. documentation  - food traceability, (EU 178/2002)
2. nutrient (energy) balance for field / whole farms (EU 2000/60/EG)
3. business calculation for farms,
4. (thematic) mapping as well as
5. subsidy management. (EU 1782/2003)

Open interfaces and internet allow links to subcontractors, customers, public authorities.

1. DokuPlant precision farming (PF) module with integrated PF tools and lots of backoffice functions to communicate with ISO-and CAN-bus systems.
2. DokuPlant virtual farming module for combining “virtual” larger fields to overcome the small farm size problem but leave the farmers to stay owners of their ground

ForestOffice: GIS based, designed for forestry-planning, -inventory, -management, logistics.
Rural area LoGIStic is composed of a central station and mobGIS (mobile). It  is a universal logistic tool, integrating GIS, communication (GPRS/UMTS), internet servers as hubs and a mobile GIS platform with embedded GPS on the machines.
FOMUMIIS: A brand new concept (developed in cooperation with the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences / Vienna) to handle environmental as well as risk management questions and is used by experts embedding their local know how again.
Community- and Pipeline-Management as well as fire brigade applications are rounding off the applications for a complete rural area management.

Main features

The product range “DokuPlant” was developed for farmers and farm advisory systems (EU 1783/2003) to manage agricultural enterprises best possible, to comply with regional and EU-wide regulations and to profit directly from the latest expert know-how, they usually don’t have access to. For a better management, a better overview, an easier data input, a quicker planning and documentation, monitoring and an exact analyse as base for decision making, there is integrated a GIS-platform, a real-time management and a so called expert-data base.
The construction of plots/fields is supported by embedded cadastre data or orthoimages. A perpetual calendar enables to display any ever-performed activity – what – when - where.
The integrated database is filled with agricultural expert data. Today in Germany it contains approx. 30.000 elements with 2.500 agro-machines linked with their costs, benefits etc., data of 3.000 mineral- and organic-fertilizers with their chemical contents, about 12.000 crops, about 500 crops and their average yields and seed needs as well as data including content from 850 legal approved herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. The methods and the whole work-process during a year with all embedded activities and the linked data are predefined for 500 different crops. This allows to reduce the planning to one drag and drop: Where (plot in the geography) do I grow what (select crops out of the expert model).
The expert-database of the ForestOffice contains the growth tables of different trees.
These agricultural and forest expert-data have to be modified with local experts partnering in a new “farm - farm advisory – expert” business model (connected IT-trust centers would gurantee the rights for data privacy) It allows the integration of public/private partners as co-beneficiaries, e.g. banks and insurance (an advise contains also business calculations transferable into a business plan that is needed for financing; a crop map is the base for insurance), food industry, trade & wholesale ((geo-)traceability is needed for food quality and risk management), agro-equipment- and agro chemistry industries (transfer of plan-data into data-loggers installed at tractor and transferred back done activities) and government departments (integrating statistic models or subsidy tools). Also franchise models with public/private farm advisory systems are possible.
Depending on the country needs, different models are possible to be set up in cooperation with public and/or private partners; based on these agreements, beside the agriculture also forest-, community-, utilities or logistics-solutions can be offered.
Pricings / licensing is available for partners (ask for distributor models), for single farmers and for farm advisory services (quantity discounts for farm advisory tools combinable with farmer tools) for only GIS users including different tools (ISO, OMEGA) and development environment (payment in advance or licensing models available), for other application users (forestry, community, fire brigade, pipeline). Also licensing modules are available covering complete countries and/or complete vertical markets. Ask for more details.

SaRAM  Science assisting Rural Area Management

Why?

“Agriculture employs more people and uses more land and water than any other human activity,”Agriculture is expected to feed a world population that will increase from six to ten billion by 2050 - an industry that is worth to invest money and to commit.

•	The SaRAM will help people employed in agricultural and forest enterprises at their daily work and will also help other beneficiaries as farm advisors, scientists, agro-banks, insurance comp., traders, food industry, suppliers of machines and chemicals and the public.
•	With the SaRAM it becomes possible to provide them smart tools helping them to run enterprises ecological and profitable!
•	The SaRAM will help educating them!
•	The SaRAM will help imparting latest expert-know-how to them!
•	The SaRAM will help offering them high level advise!
•	Let’s jump at a new change - agriculture and forestry is the emerging business area for ICT – a prosperous agriculture and forestry saves a healthy environment and good quality of food and water to our offspring and us.
•	Let’s have a stake in a future managed by farmers and foresters producing food, biomass and a healthy environment together with their business partners

Main targets

The main target of the SaRAM is to make the technology as a whole or also as part of it accessible to all beneficiaries. Therefore, it has to be adopted for any country. The software has to be translated, the expert databases adopted and the algorithms stored in the database of the AGROffice development kit, adjusted to the assigned tasks.
Usually, this work is done by IT-companies working close together with agro-scientists or outsourcing specific works to them. Further objectives are to provide in future innovative IT-solutions, to foster the cooperation between IT-experts and agro-scientists, to create a know-how platform for new and needed IT developments, to embed the science as platform for the necessary know how transfer, to create new workplaces within IT companies, to install advisory services for rural areas and to stimulate agro-environment coherences and sustainability. “AGROffice complete” enables IT companies to enter new agricultural markets.

Solutions at federal level

In cooperation with large IT partners and within the work with national governments the necessary skills are available to assist also in the parallel development of institutional capabilities.

Project participation

The project addresses scientists representing the agriculture, forest and ecology related fields and IT-companies. There should be agreed collaboration agreements between these both groups. One of the highest priorities in the project is to achieve a countrywide coverage regarding the access to all farmers and foresters and the diversity of cultivations. So it is recommended to form syndicates within business fields, the science organisations and the IT-companies.

Prerequisites for participation

Interested parties have to prove their technical and vocational skills, the organisational background and must be able to finance their project participation.

All participants have to enter a non-disclosure agreement with PROGIS and optional between each other to protect confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets of their respective companies/organisations.

Main tasks of the participants

IT-companies will have to

1. cooperate closely with scientist(s) by adopting the software
2. keep close contact with PROGIS during implementation phase and also afterwards
3. distribute products throughout the country (distributorship agreement with PROGIS)
4. provide local trainings and local support and provide ongoing update (upgrade)
5. develop on top local applications

Science organisations will have to

1. cooperate close with IT company(ies) to help them adopting the software
2. adopt the expert data base(s) and investigate regional legislations
3. investigate local demands for agro-data analyses
4. define necessary add on developments and guarantee a regular update

Awareness raising

There will take place some SaRAM-briefing days to find investors, donors and sponsors supporting participants during the project implementation phase and for stakeholders from the categories listed below (in order to initiate public-private partnerships):

1. Agricultural Ministries and agricultural authorities
2. Agricultural advisors
3. IT Software development
4. Agricultural science and research
5. Agricultural banks & insurance companies
6. Agricultural input sellers

The briefing days are scheduled to take place on Jan 31st, on Feb. 29th, and on March 27th in Villach/Austria – the headquarter of PROGIS. On request of participants, the briefing can also take place at any other location, whereby in this case costs for travelling and accommodation of referees have to be paid

Project run

Next to the general information days there will be offered 20 seminar days within 2 years and a two years lasting personal and individual training and support via email and skype hotline. The seminar days are split into 4 seminar weeks, each lasting one week. The seminars are structured in modules, likewise the technology. The first two seminars take places from April 14st to 18th and October 20th to 24th 2008.  This all guarantees, that participants are supported best possible by learning the software, adopting it and implementing the project.

1. Seminar April 14th - 18th.
2. Seminar  October 20th - 24th

The project implementation in a glance