Cropinfra – An Internet-based service infrastructure to support crop production in future farms

•Networked infrastructure provides tailored operations management environments.•Future Internet technologies enable tactical and technical support ad hoc on-line.•Possibility to create assisting applications by mashing-up different services.•Shared data enables efficient and smart operations and processes.•New business opportunities in service and assistance for all actors.

Farmers face increasing demands in their everyday farm operations; from stakeholders along the food chain, governments and the society. These demands concern aspects of product quality, food safety and security, traceability as well as environmental, ethical and societal expectations. The intensification of food production due to the global population growth and scarce production input resources set a challenging frame for efficient and yet still economical farming. Solutions based on new technologies have not become common due to their high costs, unclear benefits, complicatedness to use and maintain, and lack of interoperability. The Cropinfra project investigated how Internet-based service infrastructure enables networked production systems which support farmers to operate efficiently and fulfil farming demands using present and future technologies. The work was based on system engineering approach. Results from other projects were utilised to create a modelled system representation of the whole farm production infrastructure. The system was gradually implemented and its functionalities were verified in practice on farm scale at MTT's research farm in Finland. The technical implementation structure of built Cropinfra platform and its assisting functions in farm operation management, especially in precision farming, are introduced and assessed in this paper. The Cropinfra platform is a multi-layered service framework. The framework consists of sub-services such as sensors in machines and equipments, data collection and machine control, data storing, and external services e.g. for weather and disease forecast. The service layer follows the Service Oriented Architecture paradigm and utilises open data transfer and data sharing interfaces, and Future Internet technologies.