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FaST

EU Space Data for Sustainable Farming

What is FaST?

Supported by the European Commission’s DG Agriculture and Rural Development, by the EU Space Programme (DG DEFIS) and by the EU ISA2 Programme (DG DIGIT), the FaST digital service platform will make available capabilities for agriculture, environment and sustainability to EU farmers, Member State Paying Agencies, farm advisors and developers of digital solutions.

The vision is for the FaST to become a world-leading platform for the generation and re-use of solutions for sustainable and competitive agriculture based on space data (Copernicus and Galileo) and other data public and private datasets. The modular platform will support EU agriculture and the Common Agricultural policy by also enabling the use of solutions based on machine learning applied to image recognition, as well as the use and reuse of IoT data, various public sector data, and user generated data.'

FaST Stage 2

We are happy to announce that Stage 2 of the FaST project will expand the reach of the platform to the farmers of:

  • Wallonia (Belgium)
  • Bulgaria
  • Greece
  • Romania
  • Slovakia

Kick-off meetings are being organized within the month of June, and this second stage is expected to be completed by the end of May 2022.

The Paying Agencies that participated in the first stage of the project (Andalucia , Castilla y Leon , Estonia and Piemonte ) will continue to be supported in the running of their platform, throughout the course of Stage 2.

FaST v1.0 release

March 30th 2020

We are happy to announce that FaST v1.0 has been released to the currently participating regions of the project.

This v1.0 mobile application embarks the following features in a user-friendly interface:

  • Maps overlaying farm data on GIS layers
  • Copernicus/Sentinel imagery: RGB+NDVI
  • Campaign management with import of IACS/GSAA farmer data
  • Fertilization recommendation
  • Geo-tagged photos
  • Two-way communications
  • Basic weather/climate

The platform also provides an Administration Portal where the Paying Agency can access the regional data, configuration and user profiles and a secured API mechanism to remotely connect to the datastore.

Paying Agencies, contact us to obtain test credentials to trial the app and be granted read-access to the administration portal.

You can also download the slides of the FaST Year 1 closing meeting.

Why FaST?

FaST will help lay the foundations of a comprehensive digital ecosystem for sustainable farm and land management in Europe. It will support farmers in their administrative decision-making processes, for farm profitability and environmental sustainability. At the same time, it will provide a reliable on-farm landing spot for digital solution developers (including satellite-based solutions) and service providers. It will reduce administrative burdens for farmers and Paying Agencies, and streamline communication between the farmers and public authorities.

About FaST

The Common Agricultural Policy stands to greatly benefit from expanded and democratised access to satellite data and services

The Common Agricultural Policy stands to greatly benefit from expanded and democratised access to satellite data and services

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the largest and most promising use case for solutions based on Copernicus and Galileo in the public sector. With farming being one of the main economic sectors using such data, further realising its potential depends on adequate data sharing and solution interoperability and integration....

But what does FaST actually look like?

FaST users (farmers, Paying Agencies etc) interact with the platform through a custom mobile application and web portals accessible from any internet-connected computer.

The FaST mobile app surfaces Copernicus and Galileo capabilities to the farmer

The FaST mobile app surfaces Copernicus and Galileo capabilities to the farmer

The FaST mobile app acts as a landing point for multiple CAP and environment-related use cases

The FaST mobile app acts as a landing point for multiple CAP and environment-related use cases

The parcels of the farmer are displayed with regulatory layers such as NVZ and Natura2000

The parcels of the farmer are displayed with regulatory layers such as NVZ and Natura2000

Fertilization advice is provided through a user-friendly interface

Fertilization advice is provided through a user-friendly interface

The FaST platform integrates multiple heterogeneous data sources from participating Member States

The FaST platform integrates multiple heterogeneous data sources from participating Member States

The Paying Agencies access the platform through a web portal, where they can, amongst other things, manage users and directly communicate with them.

The Paying Agencies access the platform through a web portal, where they can, amongst other things, manage users and directly communicate with them.

Project timeline

  • Wed, Jun 16 2021
    Kick-off FaST Stage 2 between the EC, PwC and the 5 Paying Agencies of Stage 2 (Wallonia , Bulgaria , Greece , Romania and Slovakia )
  • Fri, Jun 11 2021
    Kick-off FaST Stage 2 between the EC, PwC and the 4 Paying Agencies of Stage 1 (Andalucia , Castilla y Leon , Estonia and Piemonte )
  • Fri, Jun 04 2021
    Kick-off FaST Stage 2 between the EC and PwC
  • Thu, Mar 04 2021
    Release v1.0.0 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Fri, Feb 19 2021
    Release v0.2.8 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Wed, Feb 03 2021
    Release v0.2.7 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Wed, Jan 13 2021
    Release v0.2.6 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Mon, Dec 14 2020
    Release v0.2.5 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Thu, Dec 03 2020
    Release v0.2.4 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Thu, Nov 19 2020
    Release v0.2.3 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Mon, Nov 09 2020
    Release v0.2.0 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Sun, Nov 01 2020 - Sun, Feb 28 2021
    November - February activities

    - Iterative releases of the mobile app and Adminstration Portal
    - Deployment of 3 authentication mechanisms: OPCyL (Castilla y Leon), DAT (Andalucia) and TARA (Estonia).
    - Deployment of the 4 IACS connectors: OPCyL (Castilla y Leon), REAFA (Andalucia), ARPEA (Piemonte) and PRIA (Estonia)
    - Iterative upgrades on the fertilizations algorithms, mainly Fertilicalc (up to product recommendation) and Visione
    - Implementation and deployment of a WMS connections service, with on-the-fly reprojection and caching
    - Implement mechanisms to request and store consent (privacy policies, data access) from users
    - Implement screens to initialize a campaign based either on IACS data from the previous year or from a duplication of an exisitng campaign
    - Implement screens to add or remove plots (and associated crops) from a campaign
    - Implement screens for the edition of farm soil samples
    - Added password reset workflows for the FaST identity provider
    - Improve the RGB/NDVI map widget to show cloud cover and legend
    - Added push + email notifications for users whose email has been provided to FaST
    - Deployed the FaST app as a webapp to be used in a browser (mobile + laptop)
    - Improve the Administration Portal (navigation, stability, add maps), add user documentation
    - Add more details to the weather widget in the app
    - Add more details to plot constraints widget (NVZ, hydrology, etc)
    - Implement and deploy external access to the API via API keys
    - Improve map caching and maps performance in general
    - Usability improvements and fixes in the app and in the Administration Portal

  • Fri, Sep 18 2020
    Questions and Answers meeting with candidates Member States of FaST year 2

    - A clarification and Q&A meeting was held with Member States interested in participating in the second phase of the project
    - The meeting was attended by representatives of Slovenia, Belgium (Wallonia), Slovakia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Greece

  • Sat, Aug 01 2020 - Fri, Oct 30 2020
    August - October activities

    - Deployment of the platform on a production infrastructure
    - Preparation of a stagin environment based on Kubernetes 1.15
    - Tests and validation of the cluster autoscaling mechanism
    - Deploy automatic alerting and telemetry mechanisms on the cluster
    - Finalization of CI/CD pipelines for the FaST backend services
    - Development of front-end (mobile) layout for Fertilicalc
    - Improvements on the geo-tagged picture usability (mobile app)
    - Implement the possibility for MS to add their own custom WMS layers to the mobile app and admin portal maps
    - Improvements to the authentication process to take into account specificities of federated providers like SPID (Italy)
    - Improvements to the security of the FaST authentication (anti brute force)
    - Development of backend services for push notifications handling
    - Implement language selection and automatic switch, in the mobile app
    - Development of front-end (mobile app) screens for the Visione fertilization algorithm (Piemonte)
    - Preparation of database initialization files for Estonia, Piemonte and Andalucia
    - Development of weather service based on ARPA (Piemonte) (current status: backend developed)
    - Migration of the picture storage service from shared disk to S3 + authenticated proxy
    - Improvements to the NDVI tiling service (apply cloud mask, dynamic coloring on the front-end, reprojections)
    - Improvements to translations in the mobile app and admin portal (through professional translation services)
    - Support to Andalucia and Estonia for the development of their authentication and/or IACS APIs
    - Documentation: continue developing the documentation for the deployment of the platform
    - Documentation: improvements to the source code docs for completed services (readme files)
    - Preparation for the release of the mobile app under an EC account on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store
    - Release of the first beta version of the mobile app and admin portal for Castilla y Leon

  • Sat, Aug 01 2020
    Release v0.1 of FaST app and Administration Portal
  • Thu, Jul 16 2020
    First FaST demo

    - First demo of the current state of development of the platform during a webinar.
    - Recording and slides are available at the top of this page.
    - The demo was attended by over 180 participants from the public sector of European Member States (Agriculture ministries, CAP Paying Agencies, Agricultural Research Centers), European institutions (JRC, GSA) and private actors who where interested in the interconnection capabilities offered by the platform.

  • Mon, May 18 2020 - Mon, May 25 2020
    Project Participants user workshops #2 (via video conferencing due to Covid-19 situation)
  • Fri, May 01 2020 - Fri, Jul 31 2020
    May - July activities

    - Cluster deployment using Kubernetes 1.15 and implementation of the GitOps handlers
    - Setup Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment pipelines for the FaST backend services
    - Finalize import of external/public data sources into FaST for the 4 participating regions: hydrography, Natura2000, nitrate vulnerable zones, soil data, etc
    - Implementation of vector tiling servers for public GIS data and farmer parcels
    - Implementation of API gateways based on GraphQL technology, with authentication and permissions
    - Technical accompaniment of participating MS for the development of their APIs to access IACS data for farmers and to authenticate farmers
    - Development of connector for the Castilla y Leon authentication system (paying agency)
    - Development of connector for the Castilla y Leon IACS APIs (paying agency)
    - Development of connector for the Piemonte IACS APIs (paying agency) (currently based on samples)
    - Development of fertilization service based on Fertilicalc (Spain): (current status: backend developed+ 70% of front-end)
    - Development of fertilization service based on Vegsyst (Spain) (current status: backend developed)
    - Development of fertilization service based on Visione (Piemonte) (current status: backend developed)
    - Development of RGB/NDVI tiling service based on Sentinel L2A products from Sobloo DIAS (current status: backend & front-end developed)
    - Development of weather service based on SiAR and AEMET (Spain) (current status: backend developed)
    - Development of weather service based on Ilmateenistus (Estonia) (current status: backend developed)
    - Development of mobile application for Android and iOS (Current status: 50% developed)
    - Development of paying agency web portal (Current status: 70% developed)
    - First pass on the algorithmic implementation of the regulation on NVZ and non-NVZ in each of the 4 pilots
    - Documentation of architecture and system: work in progress, available on the code repository
    - Necessary preparations to open the source code repositories to the general public (security review, permissions, etc)
    - Continued on Journey Documentation: report targeting PA/MSs interested in joining the project

  • Sun, Mar 01 2020 - Thu, Apr 30 2020
    March - April activities

    - Collection of agricultural algorithms from all pilots
    - Conduction of technical analysis of algorithms
    - Implementation and tests of Fertilicalc (Spain) and Visione (Italy) algorithms
    - Identification of available data sources from each pilot: first integrations of Natura2000, NVZ and hydrology layers as well as soil databases/GIS layers in the platform
    - Identification of the desired identity providers/ authentication systems for each MS/MA/PA ; implementation of FaST connectors for SPID (Italy), TARA (Estonia), OpCyl (Castillla y Leon)
    - Liaison with participating regions for the development of the necessary IACS APIs
    - Deployment of the cluster infrastructure on the Sobloo DIAS: service mesh, security, continuous integration and deployment
    - Development of weather service connector for Spain (SiAR + AEMET)
    - Scaffolding of the mobile app / website, review of the EGNSS4CAP GSA geotagged photos app
    - Review of regulation on NVZ and non-NVZ in each of the 4 pilots, to customize the tool accordingly
    - Definition of the FaST data model, partly based on Inspire and the Estonian eFieldbook study

  • Thu, Feb 27 2020 - Fri, Feb 28 2020
    Castilla y Leon user workshops #1 in Valladolid, Spain Castilla y Leon user workshops #1 in Valladolid, Spain
  • Tue, Feb 25 2020 - Wed, Feb 26 2020
    Andalusia user workshops #1 in Sevilla, Spain Andalusia user workshops #1 in Sevilla, Spain
  • Wed, Feb 19 2020 - Thu, Feb 20 2020
    Piedmont user workshops #1 in Torino, Italy Piedmont user workshops #1 in Torino, Italy
  • Mon, Feb 17 2020 - Tue, Feb 18 2020
    Estonia user workshops #1 in Tallinn, Estonia Estonia user workshops #1 in Tallinn, Estonia
  • Tue, Jan 07 2020
    Kick-off FaST Stage 1

Interested?

This EU-supported action will result in customized, operational tools for farmers in the participating Member State Paying Agencies to provide to farmers.
If you are interested in finding out how to participate:

Claudia Muresan
Claudia Muresan

European Commission
DG DEFIS

ec@fastplatform.eu
Isidro Campos-Rodriguez
Isidro Campos-Rodriguez

European Commission
DG AGRI

dgagri@fastplatform.eu
Elena-Cristina Cosma
Elena-Cristina Cosma

European Commission
DG DIGIT / ISA2

isa2@fastplatform.eu
Technical team
Technical team

PwC France
FaST delivery team

tech@fastplatform.eu