With today's activation of a German state platform for agricultural data, the German Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, is making progress in the intelligent handling of the growing amount of data in agriculture. Farmers, companies, start-ups and research can access data relevant to them on the platform. For the first time, the available agricultural data is bundled centrally in one place.

At www.landwirtschaftsdaten.de, you can find all publicly available federal data in the fields of crop production, animal husbandry, fishing and forestry as well as environmental, geographic and statistical data. For example the latest data from the soil condition survey of the Thünen Institute or the online database for plant protection products of the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety. For example, intelligent spray nozzles controlled by satellite can automatically adjust the dose of the crop protection agent.

Federal Minister Julia Klöckner: “Agricultural data are the resources of the future. By networking relevant data on our new platform, we want to advance the research and development of intelligent machines and applications. They help to act in a more sustainable, animal-friendly, transparent and efficient manner. Our goal is innovations to further modernize and digitize agriculture and thus support farmers in the transformation process. "

In a first step, data sets from the subordinate research institutions and authorities of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture are provided in a clear manner. Further data - such as geodata or weather data - will be added gradually.

The data portal for agriculture is the first result of a recommendation of the feasibility study on state data platforms for agriculture commissioned by the Federal Ministry.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE in Kaiserslautern was commissioned to carry out the feasibility study in August 2019. Together with the project partners, the Board of Trustees for Technology and Construction in Agriculture (KTBL), the TU Dresden (agricultural systems technology), the European University Viadrina (public law) and the law firm Legerlotz Laschet und Partner Rechtsanwälte, 104 interviews were conducted with Representatives of different agricultural stakeholder groups (e.g. farms of different sizes, the agricultural engineering industry, responsible authorities) and an online survey was carried out. In addition, almost 60 agricultural projects and initiatives were analyzed. The most important results were:

• Farmers want less bureaucracy.

• You want to retain sovereignty over your own data.

• You want to find government information better and easier.

• Farmers and companies in the agricultural sector need open, machine-readable interfaces for data exchange.

• Authorities, on the other hand, want stronger networking between government agencies.