NIVA final plenary meeting in Santorini

On the 28th and 29th of September, the New IACS Vision In Action (NIVA) project, led by Wageningen University and Research, held its final plenary meeting in Santorini. There are 27 project partners and 9 Member State Paying Agencies (PAs) involved in the project (PAs – equivalent to the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food & Marine). NIVA’s goal is to develop and implement technologies that will result in a more seamless Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), specifically by improving the key administrative control platform – the integrated Administrative Control System (the instrument for CAP governance). On the 26th and 27th of September, a stakeholder meeting was held with representatives from the EU, additional PAs, and service providers from across Europe. 

Goal of the event

The stakeholder forum’s main goal was to assess the outputs of NIVA in terms of results achieved and, more importantly, how they align with the needs of current and future CAP implementations. As a result, each of the nine NIVA pilots were examined. These nine pilots provided innovations in three major areas of CAP administration; self-certification, monitoring, and seamless claim. 

Use Case 4a was delivered in Ireland by an interdisciplinary team led by the Department of Agriculture Food and Marine (DAFM), with Walton Institute responsible for application development alongside Teagasc who are guiding socio-economic research to support adoption. DAFM has fully adopted the geo-tagged photo application which will be used for four farmer income support schemes in 2022. It has also been adopted by consortium partners Greece and Estonia as well as Austria, an external PA. 

Relevance of this Technology

The importance and relevance of this technology were highlighted at the stakeholder conference by presentations on the Area Monitoring System (AMS) by DG AGRI. The implementation of an AMS in all EU countries is mandatory beginning in 2024 and geotagged photos are now considered to have ‘equivalence’ with other data to support claims for CAP payments as part of that system. This resulted in a high level of interest in the app AgriSnap which was developed by Dave Hearne, Walton Institute. AgriSnap piqued the interest of many at the stakeholder conference and plenary sessions. 

The project plenary session was devoted to a thorough examination of work package outputs, with a focus on KPIs, as well as final project administration. Walton and DAFM also presented their AI work during the plenary session. This relates to additional funding obtained as part of the project to implement an AI platform and models to speed up image processing. The need for this became apparent as a result of AgriSnap’s success, with over 100,000 images submitted to date. 

Waltons Part

Walton created an early prototype AI platform for image processing in NIVA4CAP. In addition, some preliminary algorithms have been trained in collaboration with Wageningen University and Research and are now available. With the ability to upload images and select and run AI models, this platform includes an API layer and facilitates machine learning and deep learning. Currently, the models include algorithms to support privacy protection (detect and obscure faces and licence plates), image quality, grazing activity identification, and permanent pasture identification..  

AI implementation to support CAP can significantly reduce administrative burdens for both farmers and paying agencies. A session was also dedicated to ‘Life after NIVA.’ Many PAs emphasised the value of collaborating with RPOs and technical partners from other countries. A ‘Santorini Agreement’ was signed, declaring an intent to seek funding to coordinate the work of NIVA. The NIVA Walton team is working on a number of proposals that will expand on its work in the project.