Smart farming is a management style that includes smart monitoring, planning and control of agricultural processes. This management style requires the use of a wide variety of software and hardware systems from multiple vendors. Adoption of smart farming is hampered because of a poor interoperability and data exchange between ICT components hindering integration. Software Ecosystems is a recent emerging concept in software engineering that addresses these integration challenges. Currently, several Software Ecosystems for farming are emerging. To guide and accelerate these developments, this paper provides a reference architecture for Farm Software Ecosystems. This reference architecture should be used to map, assess design and implement Farm Software Ecosystems. A key feature of this architecture is a particular configuration approach to connect ICT components developed by multiple vendors in a meaningful, feasible and coherent way. The reference architecture is evaluated by verification of the design with the requirements and by mapping two existing Farm Software Ecosystems using the Farm Software Ecosystem Reference Architecture. This mapping showed that the reference architecture provides insight into Farm Software Ecosystems as it can describe similarities and differences. A main conclusion is that the two existing Farm Software Ecosystems can improve configuration of different ICT components. Future research is needed to enhance configuration in Farm Software Ecosystems.

Farming nowadays is a complex managerial task that imposes stringent requirements on farm management information systems. In other sectors, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are widely implemented to meet such requirements. This paper assesses the applicability of ERP systems in the agri-food domain by investigating the experiences of agri-food companies that already have implemented an ERP system. More specifically, the research has analyzed the drivers and barriers for adoption of ERP in the Dutch horticultural sector. The results show that the alignment of ERP with the specific characteristics and requirements of a company is a crucial challenge in order to capitalize the benefits of ERP. The study also shows that it is possible to deal with this challenge. The majority of the respondents (62%) is positive about of the match of the specific ERP solution with the company’s business processes during implementation. Most of these respondents have implemented a system that includes a sector-specific layer around a standard ERP solution. Moreover, it is concluded that a proper management of the orientation, selection and implementation processes is of crucial importance for a successful adoption.

Logistics in the food and agribusiness industry must address perishable products, unpredictable supply variations and stringent food safety and sustainability requirements. The Internet of Things (IoT) could contribute significantly to solve these challenges because it allows for remotely controlling the location and conditions of shipments and products. This paper develops a reference architecture for IoT-based logistic information systems in agri-food supply chains. It proposes a hybrid solution that combines the IoT and cloud computing. The architecture supports the provision of affordable tailor-made solutions by utilising technology enablers of the European Future Internet programme and by facilitating the reuse of domain-specific functionalities.

Internet technologies allow supply chains to use virtualizations dynamically in operational management processes. This will improve support for food companies in dealing with perishable products, unpredictable supply variations and stringent food safety and sustainability requirements. Virtualization enables supply chain actors to monitor, control, plan and optimize business processes remotely and in real-time through the Internet, based on virtual objects instead of observation on-site. This paper analyses the concept of virtual food supply chains from an Internet of Things perspective and proposes an architecture to implement enabling information systems. As a proof of concept, the architecture is applied to a case study of a fish supply chain. These developments are expected to establish a basis for virtual supply chain optimization, simulation and decision support based on on-line operational data. In the Internet of Things food supply chains can become self-adaptive systems in which smart objects operate, decide and learn autonomously.

Modern information-based technologies, such as self-driving tractors, GPS, milk robots, automated egg production, satellite data and social media, will change farm practices and agricultural structure and contribute to the prosperity and resilience of farming systems. Based on macro-trends and niche developments we argue that the food chain will become much more datadriven, based on up to date ICT. It will move away from a situation characterised by a low level of integration of data. This has a large potential impact on issues like sustainability, food safety, resource efficiency and waste reduction. The economic effects of such developments are still to be explored. At first sight it could lead to more closely integrated supply chains that makes the farmer act as a franchisee with limited freedom. But the opposite could be true as well, with more transparency and easier options for direct sales in consumer food webs, using social media and smart solutions for the ‘last mile’ delivery. Like with previous technological developments, not all farmers will invest in new skills and where technologies are saving labour, farms will get bigger. Some farms or regions will become less competitive if the basic infrastructure (e.g. in broad band internet or GPS systems) lacks. Competition between advisors could increase, if they are able to serve farmers digitally. That could also mean that a part of such value added activities moves from the most remote rural areas to regions with clusters of knowledge. As Allen and Lueck (2002) showed in their “Nature of the farm”, that family farms are characterised by a low level of specialisation of the farmer’s tasks, as the markets does not provide enough incentives to specialise. Due to a low profitability with a high level of risk and especially high transaction costs in factor markets as a result of moral hazard, family farms are competitive over more industrial holdings in most types of farming. ICT, higher food prices and demography could change that.

Current consumers are demanding food that is produced more sustainably, safely and transparently. To meet these demands farm enterprises need to improve production. To support this, a variety of high-tech tools are available. Despite this availability, farmers face difficulties in adopting and integrating them effectively. This paper presents a method to identify bottlenecks that hinder arable farm enterprise integration, in which a reference model serves as a base for models describing arable farm enterprise architectures. This reference model, described in a standard modeling language, shows the interrelations between the business, application and technology layers of farm enterprises. It was validated by two experts with expertise in the creation of reference models of arable farms. This reference model was used to create enterprise architectural descriptions of three arable farms in the Netherlands, showing a series of bottlenecks. The bottlenecks that we found are: nonexistence of services and interfaces to support farm processes, (partly) overlapping applications, inability of applications to share a data repository, skills required of farmers to exchange data and unavailability of business services to configure tools of different vendors. These bottlenecks, applicable for potato production in the Netherlands, were validated with national and international experts who have expertise in arable farming. Based on this validation, we conclude that these bottlenecks are valid for other cultivations and in other countries. This papers shows that our approach, i.e. describing the arable farm enterprise architecture, is also a valuable method to gain insight in different aspects of arable farm enterprise integration and can be used to make the first steps towards prioritizing and removing bottlenecks.

The Future Internet is expected to greatly influence how the food and agriculture sector is currently operating. In this paper, we present the specific characteristics of the agri-food sector focusing on how information management in this area will take place under a highly heterogeneous group of actors and services, based on the EU SmartAgriFood project. We also discuss how a new dynamic marketplace will be realized based on the adoption of a number of specialized software modules, called “Generic Enablers” that are currently developed in the context of the EU FI-WARE project. Thus, the paper presents the overall vision for data integration along the supply chain as well as the development and federation of Future Internet services that are expected to revolutionize the agriculture sector.

The Future Internet is expected to greatly influence how the food and agriculture sector is currently operating. In this paper, we present the specific characteristics of the agri-food sector focusing on how information management in this area will take place under a highly heterogeneous group of actors and services, based on the EU SmartAgriFood project. We also discuss how a new dynamic marketplace will be realized based on the adoption of a number of specialized software modules, called "Generic Enablers" that are currently developed in the context of the EU FI-WARE project. Thus, the paper presents the overall vision for data integration along the supply chain as well as the development and federation of Future Internet services that are expected to revolutionize the agriculture sector. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of HAICTA.

The food and agribusiness is an important sector in European logistics with a share in the EU road transport of about 20 %. One of the main logistic challenges in this sector is to deal with the high dynamics and uncertainty in supply and demand. This paper defines requirements on Future Internet (FI) technologies that have to be met to accomplish the specific challenges of agri-food logistics. It identifies a set of generic technical enablers as input for the realisation of a FI core platform. This technology foundation is to be developed and tested in a Future Internet public–private partnership (FI-PPP) environment of over 150 organisations.

Mastering both demand and supply uncertainty is a key challenge for many companies. Markets are increasingly turbulent and also the vulnerability of production and logistics processes is growing. The management of uncertainty has been addressed as an essential task of supply chain management (among others by Davis 1993 and van der Vorst & Beulens 2002). For coping with the addressed uncertainties, Supply Chain Management (SCM) literature initially has focused on creating so-called lean supply chains that efficiently push products to the market. Lean supply chains build upon reduction of demand uncertainty, especially by product standardisation. Customers must choose from a fixed range of standard products that are made to forecast in high volumes. Business processes in lean supply chains can be highly automated by Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems (Davenport and Brooks, 2004). In the late 1990s, the then dominant approach of leanness was criticised more and more. It was argued that in volatile markets it is impossible to remove uncertainty. Companies therefore should accept differentiation and unpredictability, and focus on better uncertainty management. Agility was proposed as an alternative approach that aims for rapid response to unpredictable demand in a timely and cost-effective manner (Fisher, 1997, Christopher, 2000). It is founded on a mass customisation approach that combines the seemingly contradictory notions of flexible customisation with efficient standardisation (Davis, 1989, Pine et al., 1993). Efficient standardisation is realised by fabricating parts of the product in volume as standard components; distinctiveness is realised through customer-specific assembly of modules (Duray et al., 2000). Until then, SCM focused on strategies for coping with demand uncertainty. Lee (2002) was one of the first who stressed the impact of supply uncertainty on supply chain design. Supply chains characterised by high supply uncertainty require the flexibility to deal with unexpected changes in the business processes. Disturbances of logistics, production or supply of materials should rapidly be observed and lead to process changes including replanning and re-scheduling, purchasing new material, hiring alternative service providers, or negotiating new customer requirements.

Dutch agri-food supply chain network actors can use technologies, (web) services and tools to increase sustainable production and chain transparency in agriculture. Adoption of these (web) services and tools in arable farming is still low. Therefore, the Dutch ministry of agriculture started a public-private project to support more sustainable crop production: the Program Precision Agriculture. In this program, technologies, tools and (web) services are developed. Integrating new tools and (web) services into farm management is difficult and involves different disciplines. Research is involved for supporting integration. This paper provides a brief description of current projects in the Program Precision Agriculture, related to information integration. The projects are classified based on their integration levels and scope.

The study presented in this paper shows that the Dutch horticulture is active in the field of information management. Much progress is made, among others in the development and adoption of eBusiness standards. However, the development of information management in the sector is still fragmented and too slow. Furthermore, it is found that most projects work on inter-enterprise integration, the focus is on data exchange and most projects have an operational perspective. As a result, the ambition of the sector to be leading in the field of information management in horticulture chains is hindered. To overcome this, the program Digital Horticulture was formulated to coordinate ICT initiatives within and between horticultural sub-sectors (various vegetables and ornamentals), in close cooperation with governments and research/education. The study has defined four key areas for future development: information standards, chain information management, enterprise information systems, Business-to-Government and ICT Knowledge and Competences. In these areas, the Digital Horticulture program will support the exchange of knowledge, development of shared visions, alignment of ICT projects, common representation in international standardisation bodies, and business-driven research.

Purpose: Agri-food companies increasingly participate in demand-driven supply chains that are able to adapt flexibly to changes in the marketplace. The objective of this chapter is to design a configuration-based framework for reference process modelling, which enhances the interoperability and agility of information systems as required in such dynamic supply chains.Methodology/approach: The research has designed a generic framework based on literature review and on an investigation of existing reference models. Next, the framework is tested in several agri-food sectors using a multiple case study approach. The case study results are abstracted to reusable models and incorporated in the framework.Findings: The main results are: a definition of basic design requirements for reference process models in demand-driven agri-food supply chains, an analysis of the extent to what existing reference models meet these requirements, a modeling framework for designing reference process models, and applications of the framework in agri-food industry.(Practical/managerial) implications: The designed framework supplies agri-food managers with a toolkit to model a broad variety of process configurations as apparent in agri-food supply chains. The framework comprises a consistent set of supply chain models, which intermediates between supply chain design and information systems engineering. As such it enhances shared understanding and reuse of both cross-industry and sector-specific process knowledge. However, successful adoption and industry-wide application of the designed framework requires an open innovation approach in further development and maintenance. Policy makers could play an important role in lowering the barriers for such an approach, since the additional benefits are not always obvious for individual companies, especially in the short term.

The growing importance of health in consumption is expected to result in a significant increase of European fruit demand. However, the current fruit supply does not yet sufficiently meet demand requirements. This urges fruit supply chains to become more demand-driven, that is, able to continuously match supply capabilities to changing demand requirements. Realisation of such dynamic supply chains requires the design of customised supply chain configurations and subsequently the engineering of enabling information systems. Reference process models can be valuable means to support this. Based on a case study in four European countries, this paper presents a reference model for designing business processes in demand-driven fruit supply chains. The model consists of a reference modelling framework and an application of the framework to fruit supply chains. The framework defines process models at different levels of abstraction and includes a method of how they can be composed from a repository of building blocks. The applied model comprises a definition of the model building blocks in fruit supply chains and a set of pre-configure models (templates). Together, they combine fruit-specific knowledge with the reuse of generic knowledge as captured in cross-industry standards. The developed reference model bridges the gap between supply chain design and information systems engineering by providing a consistent set of process models that are on the one hand understandable for business managers and on the other hand serve as a basis for information system implementation.

Agri-food enterprises operate in a complex and dynamic environment. To meet increasing demands of consumers, government and business partners, enterprises continuously have to work on innovations of products, processes and ways of cooperation in agri-food supply chain networks (AFSCN). Hence, a development towards a more knowledge-based economy is needed. The Lisbon strategy, launched by the European Union, to attain this knowledge-based economy, has failed so far. This paper argues that information sharing and organizing ICT are main critical areas to overcome this deadlock. However, ICT development in AFSCN involves an information integration task that has to deal with technical and organizational requirements and starts with an existing installed base. Traditional software engineering approaches are inadequate to address these issues. This paper provides an overall method for analysis, design and implementation of information integration, taking technical as well as organizational development into account. The method was derived from experiences in a research and development program in the Dutch arable farming sector. A generic integration framework forms the backbone of the method to ensure systematic and sustainable ICT development. Business process management (BPM), in combination with reference information models, plays an important role. The technical architecture and infrastructure are based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Attention is paid to the organizational infrastructure that is needed to embed the results in the right context, so that they will be broadly supported and used. The method is divided into three phases: analysis, basic design and iterative implementation. Analysis of the current situation in AFSCN is supported by an information integration framework. The basic design is a first version of the generic integration framework. In the iterative implementation phase, pilot projects are guided by this basic design, which results in incremental growth of the framework. The pilot projects follow a Living Lab (LL) approach. LLs represent a user-centric, open innovation approach for sensing, prototyping, validating and refining complex solutions in multiple and evolving real life contexts. The method is illustrated by an application to the Dutch arable farming sector. It can be concluded that the contribution of the presented method lies in combining different methodologies into a design approach for information integration, based on a sound architecture. The presented method leads to ICT that follows the business processes in real life and thus enhances appropriate information sharing to support a knowledge-based economy.

Agri-food companies increasingly participate as networked enterprises in multi-dimensional, dynamic and knowledge-based networks. They have to make new connections rapidly and employ ‘up-to-the-minute’ information smoothly in business operations. Appropriate exchange and integration of information should enable this. As part of the Dutch co-innovation program ‘KodA’, an in-depth study investigated the role of information integration in multi-dimensional networks, described the current situation in agri-food supply chain networks (particularly arable farming) and provided a vision for the future. This paper presents the results of this study. It concludes that the level of standardization for data, application and process integration in arable farming is poor. A service-oriented approach that supports companies to concentrate on their business processes is proposed as a solution direction. Developments should focus on industry-specific elements, adopting worldwide cross-industry standards and building upon existing industry standards. A step-by-step approach in which business partners themselves are responsible, organizational embedding and involvement of all relevant stakeholders are important success factors.

The Dutch innovation program KodA aims for sustainable arable farming practices by putting knowledge into practice. ICT is seen as a key enabler to achieve this. The program is setup as a private-public partnership, with a strong emphasis on the private business partners to be in the lead, resulting in a renewed cooperation between research and practice. In this paper, it is argued that this calls for a deviating approach for project management in which stakeholder management plays an important role. A new approach was gradually developed by setting up and running the program. The objective of this paper is to present and discuss this new approach. It is described that an important basis was already laid during the pre-phase of the project by creating synergy through a shared vision and goals. To avoid the risk of illegal public aid to private companies and also keep the administrative burdens low, a special program structure was designed. The core of this structure is that private and public project activities are kept separated with respect to financial resources. This also appeared to be a very powerful steering mechanism for spending public money. A facilitating key instrument was developed, called the KodA Miles, copied from the well-known Air Miles. Private partners ‘save’ KodA miles by investing in own activities related to the program’s objective and they can ‘use’ miles by requesting projects for an equal amount of public money that are related to their own activities. Another important part of the approach is an organizational structure that enhances program cohesion, accompanied by appropriate steering mechanisms. It is concluded that, despite of some critical remarks that can be made, this new approach for project management is a very suitable one for private-public innovation programs in which stakeholder management plays an important role.