AgriGuide Newsletter #8 – February 2025
First Edition for 2025 – A word from our Chairs
Dear Readers,
2025 will be a pivotal year for the AgriGuide project as we expand our presence across all EU27 Member States.
We are developing the digital label infrastructure for the entire European Union, building upon valuable experience and insights gained from last year’s pilot programmes in Germany, Italy and Romania. Our aim is to be fully prepared for the forthcoming labelling regulation that will supersede 547/2011, which the European Commission plans to adopt by Q4 2025. In this regard, CropLife Europe has submitted practical recommendations during the stakeholder consultation period that concluded on 3rd February. Specifically concerning digital labels, we emphasised the importance of establishing consistent terminology on machine readability between the new labelling regulation and the electronic record-keeping regulation (2023/564).
Furthermore, 2025 will focus on creating a simple electronic record-keeping solution across the EU27 in compliance with Regulation 2023/564. We also envision integration with the digital label database to automate data provision, thereby reducing the administrative burden on growers.
Finally, we continue to develop our capacity to deliver “Compliance Use Instructions” to growers, proactively supporting them in the compliant application of plant protection products. This year, we will concentrate on refining our strategy, with the goal of commencing delivery in 2026.
The AgriGuide team is not working in isolation. Our team will expand throughout the year with additional external resources, and we will continue to nurture our excellent relationships with stakeholders.
We look forward to an exciting year ahead,
Dominic & Martyn
Extension to the remaining 24 EU countries
Our pilot countries, Romania, Italy and Germany, continue to lead the digitisation efforts with more than 250 labels available on the app. Joining them are Spain and Ireland, with the goal to digitise their portfolio in 2025. In addition, AgriGuide is launching a new phase in 2025 and is extending the platform to accommodate the digitisation of labels of the remaining 22 EU countries. These countries will be supported through 4 extension groups waves. The first wave has been launched with countries from the Northern Zone (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
Our AgriGuide team is coordinating to ensure country preparation and rollout, with onboarding tools and appointment of dedicated “rollout” coordinators for each 4 extension groups.
From the Technical Corner
New year, stronger plans
Coming into 2025, it has been clear how much we will need to deliver to make this year a success. The planning that we have been doing puts us in a good starting position, but we know that we’ll need more detailed plans and contingencies. That’s why we kicked off this year with a face-face detailed working session, meeting once again in the old Agricultural Hall in London, this time against a backdrop of an art fair.
We have laid out technical plans to extend the feature set with a product catalogue, supporting simple application records; a straightforward approach for reviewing country data sources to feed the catalogue; and a first iteration of the technical phases of country onboarding.
As part of this planning, we have delved into more detail around label versioning and driven through the first practical implementation for tracking the distinction between changes to the source (usually physical) label, and changes to the digitised version, both in the AgriGuide platform and in connected systems.
Data stewardship and data reviews
Our commitment to quality output continues. Our data steward expert is leading us through reviews of data in specific fields, individual labels, and reflecting back to us some bigger picture views to help us spot odd features and correct them. Some of this work is leading to minor updates to labels, and in many cases to improved guidance documentation for the digitisation process itself.
Application Record Keeping
The tech pillar team has initiated an extension of AgriGuide capabilities to enable farmers to record the use of plant protection products according to Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and the commission implementing regulation 2023/564 which described information to be included in such electronic reporting in a machine-readable format.
The scope of this new feature is currently under development in close collaboration with end users so that a first mockup could be tested in April 2025.
Our objective is to have this new functionality deliver to end user before year end.
Product Catalogue
To support the introduction of simple application records, as well as our overall label digitisation efforts, we plan to bring in a feature to allow us to hold a list of products, together with a very short set of information about each one – name, company, active ingredient, authorisation number and so on. We hope to build these lists in a straightforward way by making use of the excellent data sources and data bases that many countries have available.
Web/Mobile App improvements
As we move forward to improving the quality of data rendering, we have released a new set of app improvements which bring 5 new translation and rendering of label in Romanian and Italian languages. For Germany a specific need to represent vegetation barrier depth has been successfully added in the Direction for Use area.
Supporting these changes is an improved issue management process. The testing team is expanded, adding a test manager and new user testing lead, and they are making use of a dedicated environment as part of a more mature and robust infrastructure setup.
Presenting AgriGuide
Presenting AgriGuide at CIETAP
CIETAP is a regular French scientific gathering on Plant Protection Product application techniques, including experts from all relevant fields. AgriGuide team member Julien Durand-Reville from Phyteis presented AgriGuide and how it can link product information to automatic guided smart field applications, which received positive response and feedback.
AgriGuide: What’s Next
CropLife Europe & AgriGuide at the Agrifood Summit
We are proud to be sponsors at the next Agrifood summit, which promotes Franco-Belgian innovations in the agritech and food tech sectors. This is the second year that Agrifood Days will be taking place, and its aim is to accelerate the transfer of knowledge from research to economic applications and to promote innovative entrepreneurship through facilitating strategic partnerships.
CropLife Europe is happy to be present and to showcase our flagship initiative, AgriGuide.
Presenting AgriGuide at Legera
We are happy to confirm that CropLife Europe will be presenting the “AgriGuide initiative to support digital labelling” at the upcoming Annual Eastern Europe Regulatory Conference.
The conference will focus on several pivotal topics, several of which AgriGuide will contribute strongly to, and they include Digital Transformation in Regulatory Processes, Harmonisation of Data Requirements and Mutual Recognition Sustainable Use of PPPs.
