Back

Newsletter #3 – March 2024

31 Mar 2024

We are AgriGuide!

As announced in our January 2024 Newsletter, we were transitioning from Digital Label Compliance to AgriGuide. We are proud to share that this transition is complete, and we are delighted to introduce AgriGuide as our new name, logo, and brand identity!

Our new Wordmark

Our new app logo

And you can watch our brand new AgriGuide video here: AgriGuide-all you need to know

CropLife Europe Conference 2024

CropLife Europe proudly launched its flagship project, AgriGuide, through an engaging panel discussion and a captivating new video.

The event, titled “AgriGuide – Helping Farmers Comply with Increasingly Complex Legislation,” showcased how AgriGuide is set to revolutionise how farmers navigate the intricacies of agricultural regulations.

The panel featured Monica Garcia Aguilar, Policy Officer at the EU Commission’s DG SANTE, who highlighted the benefits of digital labels: “A digital label can provide clear and simple communication of a product’s potential health and environmental risks while ensuring compliant use. It can support electronic record-keeping and encourage precision application techniques.”

Patrick Pagani, Deputy Secretary General of Copa and Cogeca, the united voice of EU farmers and agri-cooperatives, shared his thoughts: “Agri-Guide is a relevant tool to make farmers’ lives easier. Interoperability and trust in data use, building on the EU Code of Conduct for voluntary data sharing, remain key aspects.“

Georgiana Hayes, Vice-Chair of the AgriGuide Steering Team, completed the panel, with Martyn Griffiths, from the AgriGuide Steering Team, moderating this discussion.

Key takeaways from the session

AgriGuide is a tool built from the collaboration and communication between all stakeholders, and consultation is the key element across all the iterations of the tool
Accessibility to digital tools in farms of all sizes is also a critical element of success for AgriGuide and the digital farming toolbox, and the AgriGuide team is engaged with stakeholders working towards solutions

The session generated significant interest and feedback. Practical concerns were addressed, such as ensuring the digital label information always reflects the content of the authorisation granted in the Member State and the app’s use in areas with poor mobile networks. The latter concern has been noted and will be addressed during further tool development.

News from the technical teams

The project ran a successful two-week proof of concept (PoC) testing session in February 2024. We had around 50 testers from the wider project team and received over 130 pieces of feedback, which we have analysed, sorted, and are using to deliver updates to the AgriGuide platform ahead of the Pilot.
We have taken the opportunity to fix a number of medium and small app user interface (UI) issues, with a second release of the app cleaning up the user experience, particularly the way label information is titled and presented in the apps.
The data model has undergone some small, low-impact changes, especially to support the major curated reference data release. Further potential changes are in our ‘backlog’ to be reviewed and prioritised as part of a planned mid-year model update.
Some mobile app bugs were corrected to integrate language-specific characters better, and the main UI section titles on the front page of a label have been modified to better reflect the EU regulatory framework and categorisation. We have introduced a new ability to sort by crop and pest to enhance access to the Direction for the Use of a label.

Reference data and controlled vocabularies

Following the PoC, the first major set of curated reference data was released to the database at the end of February. It included CLP classification, crops, pests, active ingredients, growth stages, and units. For instance, relevant sets of over 2000 crops and over 3000 pests are included.
Whenever possible, reference data is based upon standards that have been used in the agriculture industry for decades or in EU regulations: EPPO codes, BBCH codes, CLP classification, etc. The PoC highlighted the need for a stronger and clearer governance for reference data management. We have established a small team with the first set of guidelines and a process to communicate reference data requests.
PoC also led to optimisations of the data model. For instance, active ingredients will be qualified with their Resistance Action Committee codes without input from label authors.
Further optimisations are already planned.

A big Thank You to all our testers

We look forward to continuing this journey with you!

What’s next?

A demo of the AgriGuide application and video will be proposed at both the upcoming Fresenius conference on precision agriculture in Dusseldorf (10-11 April 2024) as well as at the SETAC meeting in Seville (5-9 May 2024)

The aim of this conference is to bring together stakeholders at the EU-level, to exchange on available and upcoming tools in the area of digital and precision applications and work towards a progressive and compliant development of risk assessment and risk management instruments enabling these new application techniques.

The SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) Europe’s 34th Annual will be addressing the overarching theme of “Science-Based Solutions in Times of Crisis: Integrating Science and Policy for Environmental Challenges.”