Towards Trusted Data Sharing and Exchange in Agro-Food Supply Chains: Design Principles for Agricultural Data Spaces

Abstract

In the modern agricultural landscape, realizing data’s full potential requires a unified infrastructure where stakeholders collaborate and share their data to gain insights and create business value. The agricultural data ecosystem (ADE) serves as a crucial socio-technical infrastructure, aggregating diverse data from various platforms and, thus, advertising sustainable agriculture and digitalization. Establishing trustworthy data sharing and exchange in agro-food value chains involves socioeconomic and technological elements addressed by the agricultural data space (ADS) and its trust principles. This paper outlines key challenges to data sharing in agro-food chains impeding ADE establishment based on the review of 27 studies in scientific literature. Challenges mainly arise from stakeholders’ mistrust in the data-sharing process, inadequate data access and use policies, and unclear data ownership agreements. In the ADE context, interoperability is a particularly challenging topic for ensuring the long-term sustainability of the system. Considering these challenges and data space principles and building blocks, we propose a set of design principles for ADS design and implementation that aim to mitigate the adverse impact of these challenges and facilitate agricultural data sharing and exchange.

Towards Municipal Data Utilities: Experiences Regarding the Development of a Municipal Data Utility for Intra- and Intermunicipal Actors within the German City of Mainz

“…The identified governance structure is well documented and available to all relevant stakeholders. This first, initial step also aligns with research [3,5].…”

“…Šestak and Copot outline key challenges to data sharing in agri-food chains that hinder the establishment of an Agricultural Data Ecosystem (ADE). The challenges identified include stakeholder mistrust, inadequate data access and use policies, and unclear data ownership agreements, and interoperability [5]. Finally, Šestak and Copot propose a set of design principles for designing and implementing an agricultural data space that aims to mitigate the negative impact of the abovementioned challenges [5].…”

“…The challenges identified include stakeholder mistrust, inadequate data access and use policies, and unclear data ownership agreements, and interoperability [5]. Finally, Šestak and Copot propose a set of design principles for designing and implementing an agricultural data space that aims to mitigate the negative impact of the abovementioned challenges [5]. He et al analyse the characteristics of the multi-combination of power grid data across services, and introduce a blockchain-based system in their paper.…”

Conceptual Framework and Prospective Analysis of EU Tourism Data Spaces

“…Military systems: Rettore et al ( 2023) [49] propose the concept of Military Data Space, focusing on data fusion to improve decision-making. • Agriculture: Šestak and Copot (2023) [50] delve into data sharing in agri-food supply chains, highlighting the principles of trust in the Agricultural Data Space. [56] focus on applications of data spaces in specific sectors such as energy and technology.…”