AgriDataValue aims to be a game changer in the Smart Farming Digital transformation using an innovative Agri Environment Data Space. The project implements a specialized digital platform to upscale sensor data for EU-wide monitoring of production and environmental data, combining artificial intelligence frameworks and agricultural knowledge. The first step towards this goal is measuring relevant production characteristics and collecting data. As data collection forms the foundation of the entire process, a key challenge is the efficient acquisition and integration of different data streams. At ILVO’s dairy and pig farming pilots (19 and 22), data collection has evolved from a time-consuming manual task into an efficient and automated process. Before data can be shared, analysed, or used by AI models, it first needs to be collected, validated, and integrated. This is exactly where the ILVO pilot farms contribute to the AgriDataValue vision.

Although not always visible for the untrained eye, vast amounts of data are being collected at the ILVO experimental pig and dairy farms. On the dairy farm, each cow has her own story. From the birth of the calf onwards, each aspect of the cow’s life is documented throughout her life. Its unique identification, age, pedigree and genetic characteristics form the start of a productive life producing milk for human consumption. Cow 956, a 25-month old heifer, started off with creating new life by giving birth to a female calf on July 5^th. Currently she’s producing 34 kg of milk with 4.03 % protein and 4.68 % fat, eating 28.5 kilograms of roughage feed and 7.3 kg of concentrates. Through activity and rumination monitoring, the cow’s health is continuously monitored, and every medical hurdle is being tracked on the way. As one may have noticed by now, the cow is potentially generating lots of data, presuming these aspects of her life can be measured and monitored.

An interplay of technological systems and software systems actually measures and provides the data on these characteristics, creating data flows through different streams to be connected. As demonstrated in the overview below, many sensor systems have been implemented on the farm to obtain this goal. Making use of as many commercially available solutions as possible, as a farmer would in practice, these systems are fragmented and not connected well, providing individual data streams with specific data characteristics. Therefore, to make these data easily useable and accessible for research and innovation, custom applications are necessary to correctly obtain data from each data collection instance, and merge them into useable records of cow data logged in a centralised database.

On the pig farm, several life stories are unfolding at the same time. Sow 34 has just given birth to 15 piglets yesterday after being inseminated only once, whereas sow 28 gave birth to 17 but only 16 survived the delivery. Her previous litter is doing well, but the recently weaned piglets from sow 21 are having some digestive issues, thus reducing their feed intake and daily growth. In the fattening pig barn, some of the older groups are growing well and nearing market readiness, supporting farm profitability through favourable carcass weight and dressing percentage outcomes. For now, however, they are still emitting certain amounts of ammonia into the air. Once again, data is coming from all sides at once, and dedicated procedures are necessary to bring everything together.

Therefore, ILVO has been working extensively on centralised databases, creating our own custom SmartFarm database. With dedicated SmartCow and SmartPig applications, data collection, merging, and centralisation is automated and facilitated, making data available for research and data sharing, enabling meta-analyses and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques. The road from data capture to data value starts on the farm. Behind every data-driven innovation lies a practical reality: data first needs to be measured, collected, and connected. With its custom SmartFarm infrastructure, ILVO is helping to make that process more efficient, reliable, and ready to support research, innovation and data sharing initiatives such as AgriDataValue.