Project Description
CALLISTO’s solutions are tested and validated in four pilot use cases (PUCs) related to agriculture, water quality assessment, satellite journalism and land border change detection. As regards the agricultural one, it particularly focuses on the monitoring of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). CAP constitutes a set of policies and programmes set by the European Union (EU) for any aspect concerning agriculture, aiming to ensure food production, support agricultural markets, promote development in rural areas, as well as protect the work of entrepreneurs of the agricultural sector in the EU member states [1].
Figure 1: The common agricultural policy: 2023-27 [2]
Monitoring compliance with CAP is not an easy task, since addressing all the needs and requirements set by EU’s set of policies and programmes is quite challenging. Paying agencies make an effort to monitor and take decision in more parcels than one at a time. To this end, various data sources need to be taken into consideration, such as in-situ data, images from Sentinel satellites, Very High-Resolution Satellite imagery, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle imagery, Street-Level Images and geotagged photos. Even by having in hand all this information, learning how to demonstrate the results may be difficult both for inspectors and for farmers.
End-users, i.e., farmers, should understand that the procedure of field inspections, the so-called On-The-Spot Checks (OTSC), are not mandatory and only when the available data do not lead to a conclusive result or when the authorities foresee that they will not be effective, should OTSCs be carried out.
Due to the high numbers of farmers and the small numbers of inspectors, compliance with CAP is neither an easy nor a fast procedure. To this end, CALLISTO is developing numerous services and tools with the aim to facilitate CAP monitoring by turning it into a less time and resource-consuming procedure. The mobile app, developed by DRAXIS Environmental S.A., constitutes one of these tools.
This mobile app aims to enable farmers and paying agencies to better and more efficiently monitor their compliance with CAP. Users are able to upload information about the parcels of their interest (e.g., size, crop type, etc.) and they receive various indicators about the crop monitoring. Through the app, users can also upload geotagged and timestamped photos of the parcels. An offline mode of the app is also offered, allowing users with limited or no internet access to utilize the app without having an active internet connection. All the data entering the system during this mode are uploaded to the CALLISTO database once the internet connection is restored. This offline mode of the app is a particularly important feature as in rural/agricultural areas local connection issues can be encountered.
Figure 2: The CALLISTO mobile app
The early adopters of the CALLISTO mobile application are inspectors of the Cyprus Agricultural Payments Organisation (CAPO), an organisation which even though is not part of the project consortium, has played a key role in the user requirements acquisition and the development of the app. CAPO is testing and validating the services offered through the app, a process which will contribute to its improvement and development of the final version of the app. With the correct modifications and data, the mobile app could be scaled up in order to address issues and needs of other industries, irrelevant to the agricultural domain.
References
[1] European Commission, The common agricultural policy at a glance, Available at: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-glance_en [Accessed on 13/7/23]
[2] European Commission, The common agricultural policy: 2023-27, Available at: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-2023-27_en [Accessed on 13/7/23]
Project Details
- DateJuly 31, 2023
- WriterDRAXIS Environmental S.A.
- 1
