The document summarizes the key points from the Cologne Declaration made at the GeoFARMatics 2010 International Conference. The declaration recognizes that agricultural information and communication technologies (ICT) must be an essential part of Europe's 2020 Digital Agenda in order to address challenges around global food supply/demand, quality, energy, and the environment. It calls for support and investment in ICT, knowledge management systems, social networks, and other technologies to help agricultural and rural communities adapt to these changes and ensure future food security and quality. The declaration outlines seven priority areas for action including policy/leadership, research/innovation, technological solutions, standardization, social/human aspects, and the environment.

1. GeoFARMatics 2010
International Conference
24-26 November 2010 |
Cologne, Germany
THE COLOGNE DECLARATION
The EU-funded projects FutureFarm, agriXchange and
CAPIGI-network which joined together in GeoFARMatics
2010 in Cologne, Germany, from 24th-26th November 2010,
recognised that agri-food and rural ICT must be an essential
part of the European Digital Agenda for 2020. The process of
building the Rural Knowledge Society started by the Valencia
declaration helps to reduce the digital divide between rural and
urban communities in Europe. However, new changes in the
global food supply, growing demands on food quality and
quantity, energy demands and environmental aspects introduce
new demands on future knowledge management. The objective
of future knowledge management should be to enable the agri-
food and rural communities to react adequately to these
changes. For this reason, knowledge management has to
become part of the agri-food and rural production system. This
requires a clear vision, which has to be based on discussions
with farmers, experts, politicians and other stakeholders.
Therefore the participants declare:
That ICT and knowledge management for all rural
communities including agri-food have become a vital part of
the Digital Agenda for Europe 2020. The single digital market,
Future Internet, sharing of knowledge, social networks,
protection of data and open access to information will be
essential for farming and rural communities.
The imperative aspects are the following:
1. Policy and Leadership
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2. This should be facilitated by:
(a) including representatives of ICT for Agriculture and
rural development specialists into the legislative
processes of the European Communities leading to the
definition of priorities of the Digital Agenda;
(b) raising awareness and establishing a social platform for
exchange of information among key participants,
especially rural communities;
(c) supporting a platform for standardisation of
information inside rural communities and the agri-food
sector but also between the agri-food sector and other
sectors;
(d) including rural knowledge management as an essential
part of the future European Strategic Development
plan;
(e) building a coherent strategy for rural public sector
information management.
2. Research and Innovation
The development of knowledge-based systems for the farming
sector has to be supported by ICT focused on:
• Future Internet and Internet of things including sensor
technology and machine to machine communication;
• Service Oriented Architecture as a key element of
architectures for future knowledge management
systems;
• The power of Social Networks and Social Media or so
called knowledge internet;
• Management and accessibility of geospatial information
as a key information source for any decision;
On the application side the focus has to be on:
• ICT applications for the complete traceability of
production, products and services throughout a
networked value chain including logistics;
• Collaborative environments and trusted sharing of
knowledge and supporting innovations in agri-food and
rural areas, especially supporting food quality and
security;
• ICT applications supporting the management of natural
resources and rural development.
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3. • ICT applications reducing administrative burdens in
rural areas
3. Future Technological Solutions
Future Internet architectures must reflect the needs and
specificity of rural communities. It has to be resilient,
trustworthy and energy-efficient and designed to support open
access and increasing heterogeneity of end-points. Networks
should sustain a large number of devices, many orders of
magnitude higher than the current Internet, handle large
irregular information flows and be compatible with ultra high
capacity, end-to-end connectivity. Service Oriented
Architectures have to provide methods for systems
development and integration where systems group functionality
around business processes and package these as interoperable
services. The future development of technology has to be based
on a broader utilisation of social networks. It is important to
support the development of machine-readable legislation,
guidelines and standards to integrate management information
systems with policy tools.
4. Standardisation
Major priorities for future knowledge systems will be the
integration and orchestration among services based on semantic
integration of collaborative activities, including semantic
compatibility for information and services, as well as
ontologies for collaboration. .
5. Social organisation of knowledge management
The concept of Trust Centres has to represent an integrated
approach to guarantee the security aspects for all participants in
the future farm. There will be a growing importance of
protection of privacy and IPR because trust of information is
one from the priorities for all rural communities. Pan European
Social Networks have to support trust centres and enable such
technologies as cloud applications and which will have to
guarantee knowledge security.
6. Social and Human Aspects
Rural businesses are usually small or medium size businesses
according to the number of people they employ and so
knowledge management and internal processes are different
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4. from large companies. Future knowledge systems have to be
based on each community’s own concepts of value, cultural
heritage and a local vision of a preferred future. The objective
is to develop human-centred reference models of sustainable
rural life-styles that overcome social divisions and exclusion
and include unique rural features and create new rural
businesses and social infrastructures and attractive computer-
based education.
7. Environmental Aspects
Societal and political pressures for increased environmental
standards are expected. It will be necessary to discuss such
aspects as the utilisation of GM production and environmental
aspects of bio fuel production. These aspects will, on one side,
require exact economical, health and environmental
mathematical analysis and, on the other side, public discussion
and e participation on such decisions.
In order to achieve these goals we, the participants of the
conference, “GeoFarmatics 2010” meeting in Cologne, call on
all Public Administrations, Governments and the business
sector, to support this declaration and assist in the realization of
the Digital Agenda for 2020 for rural development. We entreat
all public and private agents to create a new strategic
framework of cooperation to promote:
A. Defined key objectives for the agri-food and rural
Digital Agenda for 2020;
B. Support for the development of future internet
technologies and the internet of things;
C. Support for social networking to reach consensus about
future environmental, economical and social priorities
of agri-food and rural strategies;
D. The initiation of a continuous e-conference of all
stakeholders to define a clear future strategy and
priorities;
E. Support for new ICT and knowledge-based solutions
supporting the development of future generations of
rural businesses;
F. Support the development of knowledge technologies to
guarantee, in the future, high quality food production;
G. Open public discussion on how to solve future problems
and to secure food production versus the production of
energy and environmental benefits.
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5. 26th November 2010
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