White Paper: Farming-as-a-service

Farming as a service through AI and Cloud

Like other application domains, farming is undergoing a transition towards digitalization as major technologies are developing at a high pace such as autonomous vehicles, sensors and actuators, wireless communication, cloud computing, etc. The use of these rising trends ultimately affects the amount and quality of the food that is put on each of our plates.

Starting in 2018 as a research and development project funded by the EU program ECSEL, the AFarCloud (Aggregate Farming in the Cloud) project aims to provide advanced ICT solutions for the agriculture world. With the usage of cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and deterministic machine learning algorithms, AFarCloud intends to be the be-all and end-all solution for every farming business.

Our goal is to improve upon the existing methods in the field and incorporate them into a single platform that both supports legacy technologies like ISOBUS as well as introduces new viable solutions to enhance farming in every aspect possible. By doing so, we believe that AFarCloud can enable new solutions to every farm, bring in progress to optimize the processes in the agriculture sector, and reduce the costs by increasing the efficiency of business operations.

While still being a project that is in development, the AFarCloud project has reached many exciting milestones that break ground in the farming sector. As instance thereof are the business model of farming-as-a-service (FaaS) as well as various technological advancements that were developed. This document provides an overview of the AFarCloud project by describing the methodological approach utilized, the technologies as well as methods we use within it, and how you and likewise your business could benefit from using it.

The white paper covers:

• Development methodology
• Overview of Farming-as-a-service
• Technologies used in the project
• Solutions offered within the project