Digital farming holds enormous potential for agricultural development, and giving farmers the tools to boost productivity and profitability. Although the benefits of digitalization are numerous, farmers feel they are not the ones benefiting from the value of data collected on their farms. Several issues were identified as factors restricting farmers from benefiting from data-driven agriculture. From the farmers’ perspective, there is a distinct lack of awareness of the issues surrounding farm data, and the complexity of these issues. This feeds into the imbalance that exists between individual farmers and larger agribusinesses wherein the former lack enough resources to address and analyse the significance of data, and so cannot take advantage of the value in it. There is also limited legislation for the generation, flow, exchange and use of data; where legislation does exist, it is not well understood by farmer organisations. From a policy perspective, moreover, there is very little guidance as to which agricultural data can be considered personal data, and therefore protected by privacy laws. This paper analyses the interactions and effects of the 5 Concepts: Open Agricultural Data, Open-Source Software, Citizen Science, privacy and legal and ethical issues that are assumed to advance the digitalization of African Food System (AFS and the enabling Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) - SmartAfriHub (https://www.smartafrihub.com/home).

This study aimed to assess, compare, and validate a satellite-based plant health and water stress indicator: Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) over Uganda. We used a direct agricultural drought indicator—the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index at scale 3 (SPEI-03)—and a plant water stress indicator—the crop water stress index (CWSI)—for the period of 1983–2013. Novel approaches such as spatial variability and trend analysis, along with correlation analysis, were used to achieve this. The results showed that there are six classes of highly variable photosynthetic activity over Uganda, dominated by class 4 (0.36–0.45). This dominant class encompassed 45% of the total land area, mainly spanning cropland. In addition, significant increases in monthly photosynthetic activity (FAPAR) and FAPAR-centered stress indicators (SFI < −1) were observed over 85% and 60% of total land area, respectively. The Standardized FAPAR Index (SFI) had a strong positive correlation with SPEI-03 over cropland, grassland, and forest lands, while SFI had a strong negative correlation with CWSI over 80% of the total area. These results highlight the state and variation in plant health and water stress, generate insights on ecosystem dynamics and functionality, and weigh in on the usability and reliability of satellite-based variables such as FAPAR in plant water monitoring over Uganda. We thus recommend satellite-based FAPAR as a robust proxy for vegetation health and water stress monitoring over Uganda, with potential application in crop yield prediction and irrigation management to inform effective agricultural planning and improve productivity.

Background: Finnish policymakers issued a new community waste law in 2022, that aims to increase household food waste recycling. The municipalities have launched the implementation of the waste law and are responsible for supervising the development of this new project. Problem: The implementation and supervision of the waste law increases authorities' workload and also public costs. Public servants manage the households’ compost register and carry out compost audits on-site. Challenge: The challenge is to put in place the new waste management law at the lowest public cost. Purpose: The research addresses the validation of a pioneering IT solution that supports and advances households' bio composting and aims to ease waste management authorities’ workload by fostering eGovernment. Methods: The intervention consists in delivering the IoT-sensor-equipped bio-composter and associated applications. The research adopts a mission-oriented approach, and establishes a place-based, multi-actor, participatory, and open innovation testbed at Living Lab. It leverages the Lean Startup process and SWOT analysis. The research method complies with the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation. Conclusions: The IoT-sensor-equipped bio-composter is a feasible solution. Municipality waste management authorities do not regard/consider the IoT-sensor-equipped solution as beneficial from their perspective. The eGovernment strategy is not a driver in this case since bio-composter mapping and monitoring could be a future tool for real estate maintenance companies.