In this field, a new project led by DRAXIS ENVIRONMENTAL, aims to add value in the use of remote sensing in monitoring the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Since 2003, EU farmers shall respect the “cross-compliance” rules in order to receive payments. These CAP rules are legislative standards and obligations in the field of the environment and a non-compliance may lead to reduction or even cancelation of payments.
However, pursuing the integration of environmental concerns into the CAP and making it more compatible with the expectations of society, results many burdens both for the public authorities and the farmers. On the one hand, the public administrative costs are high due to the need of in-field visits and on the other hand, farmers face difficulties in familiarizing and dealing with the applicable regulations.
| The RECAP project aims to develop an improved remote monitoring of CAP obligations and to supplement the in-field inspections by the Payment Agencies. The overall objective is to develop and pilot test a platform for the delivery of public services that will enable the improved implementation of the CAP. RECAP will be a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform which will collect information from open satellite data and commercial channels of satellite data providers. It will extract useful features from earth observation, correlate them with user-generated and geo-information data and model this information for enabling the identification of potential breaches of compliance. |
The RECAP services will be tested and validated in an operational environment in the UK, Spain, Greece, Lithuania and Serbia, with the participation of farmers, agricultural consultants and public authorities. RECAP aims to offer farmers a tool supporting them to comply with regulations and enable agricultural consultants to develop their own services within the platform using tools and communication with the database under an open approach. Paying agencies will benefit through less administrative work providing at the same time enhanced transparency in the CAP monitoring procedure.
The RECAP project started in May 2016 and is supported by Horizon 2020 programme “ICT- enabled open government”. The project consortium consists of:
- DRAXIS ENVIRONMENTAL S.A. (Coordinator), Greece
- INSTITUTO NAVARRO DE TECNOLOGIAS E INFRAESTRUCTURAS AGROALIMENTRARIAS S.A., Spain
- PAYMENT AND CONTROL AGENCY FOR GUIDANCE AND GUARANTEE COMMUNITY AID, Greece
- NATIONAL PAYING AGENCY, Lithuania
- VIESOJI ISTAIGA LIETUVOS ZEMES UKIO KOSNULTAVIMO TARNYBA, Lithuania
- STRUTT & PARKER, UK
- INOSENS DOO NOVI SAD, Serbia
- THE UNIVERSITY OF READING, UK
- NATIONAL OBSERVATORY OF ATHENS, Greece
- INICIATIVAS INNOVADORAS SAL, Spain
- ETAM ANONYMH ETAIRIA SYMBOULEYTIKON MELETHTIKON YPIRESION, Greece
CREVIS SPRL, Belgium