“I believe that Agronod will play an important role in achieving the objectives within Lantmännen’s major Farming of the Future programme. There is still an innovation gap before we are able to achieve climate-neutral farming by 2050. With a national platform for shared farming data, we enable new solutions and innovations with the aim of strengthening Swedish farming. Lantmännen is one of our four owners and has been very active in the setting up of Agronod. It was also Lantmännen which, together with the Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF), Hushållningssällskapet and Växa took the initiative for the company.
Data needs to be collected, structured and standardised in order to be combined in new ways and lead to insights and new innovations. This is not how it looks today on a national level. The farmer’s business involves large amounts of data, for example information on land use, fertiliser, seed, crop protection, feed and machinery. This data is not currently collected but is instead found in its own isolated islands. And this is where Agronod comes in – our goal is to create concrete value of collected data, while at the same time ensuring that the farmer has full ownership of their data and who has access to it.
It is the farmer who owns information about farm-level added values, these are increasingly important in the value chain. How the food has been produced and its climate impact is increasingly important information for actors in the value chain. It is here that the farmer has a key role in answering those questions, and to do so, verified data is needed. Based on our overall data platform, we have developed a tool for automatic climate calculations at farm level and by product: Agrosfär.
In the first pilot version Agrofär used five data sources: Lantmännen, HKScan, Växa, Markkartering and Dataväxt. It greatly streamlines the work on climate calculations. Since we launched a first version of Agrosfär in the beginning of the summer, we are seeing great interest from farmers and food producers, banks and insurance companies. As with everything we develop, it is central that we create value for the farmer: to simplify the work on climate calculations and provide data that enables, for example, better profitability for a green transition.
We have recently received notification that we have been granted the support of SEK 50 million from the Swedish Board of Agriculture. This is fantastic news that will make our continued development journey go even faster. You can read the report from the Swedish Board of Agriculture which forms the basis for the announcement, it says:
The digitalisation of agricultural has great potential to improve, simplify and streamline the entire food system and thereby society. Fundamental to being able to utilise the benefits of digitalisation is the access to data which can then be refined through the linking together of different data sets and analysis.
I completely agree with the analysis of the Swedish Board of Agriculture – I am convinced that structured, quality assured and shared data will play a crucial role in strengthening Swedish farming going forward. It is about creating a basis for innovations and connecting technical solutions into one whole. Agronod is that foundation, an enabler for the entire industry!”