Integrating ICT Applications for Farm Business Collaboration Processes Using FI Space

Abstract

Agri-Food Supply Chain Networks are required to increase production and to be transparent while reducing environmental impact. This challenges farm enterprises to innovate their production processes. These processes need to be supported by advanced ICT components that are developed by multiple vendors and owned by different enterprises. These ICT components should use future internet technologies to enable integration. To make these future internet technologies easily available, the European Commission started a Future Internet Public-Private Partnership Programme (FI-PPP). As part of this FI-PPP the FIspace project started with the development of a cloud-based platform to support business to business collaboration, enabling the formation of domain specific Software Ecosystems. These FIspace Software Ecosystems should drive the development of integrated and extensible collaboration services together with an initial set of domain applications that can support business processes and enables collaboration in networks. The FIspace Platform will enable integration of legacy systems, extending their functionality. This paper presents two use case scenarios for the smart application of pesticides to protect crops and keep them safe for diseases. These scenarios provide architectural descriptions how FIspace Platform configurations can support these processes. Based on these specific use case scenarios, generic use case scenarios and architectural descriptions are derived. These results can be used to develop FIspace Platform configurations supporting collaboration processes in other domains.