This project is funded by the innovation program of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), funding agency is the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE). Orchestration of Process Chains for data-driven Resource Optimization in Agricultural Business and Engineering Environmentally sustainable and economically efficient operation of agricultural processes depends heavily on farm management and controlling systems. However, practical usage of these systems suffers from diverse, non-compatible implementations across collaboration machinery.

The truly innovative idea of this partnership is to integrate data from distributed information sources to provide new technologies, solutions and cultivation techniques for modern high yielding and low emis-sion precision farming. The com-mercial output targets optimization of key operations in the cropping cycle by balancing profitability for the farmer with risk of unintended emissions from fields and subsur-face.

The overall objective of FUTUREMILQ is to devlop technologies and concepts that can ensure a future high food quality from existing and future milking systems. The purpose is to develop new methods for measurement of quality decreasing free acids, to develop a fast method for analysis of secific types of spores and to develop systems for monitoring and early warning.

The agricultural sector has undergone a massive increase in productivity to meet demands for increased production of inexpensive, high-quality food. These demands have resulted primarily in larger and more productive machines.

Robots invade farmland An increasing number of farming operations in the field are taken over by robots because many agricultural implements have become so automatic that they can do the job on their own. However, the farmer is not yet completely superfluous since the robots need to be monitored and guided. For years farmers and their machinery have been partners in shouldering the heavy jobs that have to be done in the field. Now a new type of partnership with machinery is emerging where machines are asked to not merely do the heavy jobs.