How to start or be in a Union or Coperative?

Cooperatives in the EU Member States are subject to the provisions of the Council Regulation 1435/2003. However, cooperative legislation is different among the EU states and most countries have specific rules applicable to cooperatives. There are some steps for setting up a cooperative, which are summarized in: Identification of a common economic goal for potential members, decision about the number of members recruited, their rights and responsibilities, determination of business feasibility, development of a business plan, preparation of legal papers and implementation of the business plan. In many European countries, cooperatives can have a legal status either as a cooperative society with limited or unlimited liability, as an economic interest grouping or as a joint-stock company. Most EU Member have no mandatory provision regarding the minimum capital stock or the minimum number of members for setting up a cooperative.

Introduction, Definition, Examples (Social networks, Value Chains) - Sharing is caring, Develop hub for SPA, Flexible methodologies, Hubs or Clusters innovation facilitators, Social aspects of SPA, social networks, value chain agreement

Recent technological developments and social media have opened up a multitude of opportunities for farmers and agricultural companies to communicate with their customers and marketers. Especially in the EU agri-food sector, smart use of knowledge, research and innovation is the main source of productivity growth. A new digital innovation hub in Precision Agriculture can drive the digital transformation of Europe's agro-food sector, boosting innovation and growth. Moreover, this hub could also play an important role in the exploitation of opinion leadership in agricultural technology and productivity.

Business Plans

A business plan is a document that describes how to manage a specific activity in a specific period of time. It is actually a study, but also a communication tool, designed to provide information to its potential recipients, whether they are investors and potential partners. Most times, it is used as a tool for strategic decisions or as a tool for the implementation of specific actions. The contents of such a business plan may vary according to the sector of activity; nevertheless it must follow certain standards. Usually business plans are used for the presentation of a company's plans to a bank or another financial institution, for financing. It provides answers to the following three questions: where is the position of the company now, were wants to be and how will manage to be there.

Study Cases (web)

REZOS BRANDS is a food focused SME, with expertise in superfoods. The company is established in Patras, back in 1983, with main activity the distribution and development of national sales networks of imported and local food & beverages products, operating in the Greek market. Over the years REZOS BRANDS has extended its operations to all activities of the vertical business model: from the farm to the fork, which includes cultivation, harvesting, research, process, packaging, warehouse storing, marketing, distribution. Having own multifunctional farm, the super foods are cultivated and grown up with the principles of sustainable precision farming in order to develop, monitoring & analysing high nutritional value crops. The crops have been processed with novel processing techniques, such as osmotic dehydration.

Definition of SPA

Some examples of SPA definitions are presented, including the most recent definition released by the International Society of Precision Agriculture (ISPA). The SPARKLE definition of SPA is presented, with a list of all the keywords used to accomplish that definition. The three dimensions of Precision Agriculture (Economy, Agronomy and Technology) and their relative weight are discussed. Materials for this topic include a presentation and a text, that are complementary.

Sensors for crop productivity, yield maps

For gathering the final results of a season-round crop work, the georeferenced yield is a key piece of information. Harvesting equipment can be equipped with sensors to gather such information. Systems based on different technologies (impact, volume, optics, density, gravity…) will be explained for recording the yield flow inside the machinery, during the harvesting. Adaptations of yield sensors depending on the commodity, along with new sensing systems will be discussed. Sensor for quality quantification will also be explained, as they are important for certain crops. Basic procedures for the calibration of the sensing system and the proper registration of yield data to generate a successful yield map are presented.

Vineyards production cycle with SPA technologies

The use of Precision Agriculture in the vineyard chain has had a strong evolution over the last years, due to the need to risks control derived by pest and climate change. The great variability of the specific environment, dimension and infrastructure have determined more research development than market ready technologies, in comparison with what is happened in tillage crops. In viticulture, pest and climate dangerous event risk control, with IoT technologies is the core of innovation, then there is the vigour control of the vines by monitoring an agronomical management. For the high value chain of wine traceability and sustainability, key indexes are fundamental. Digital and high tech territorial platforms are essential to increase PA technologies acquisition in grape and wine value chain.

What to do with DATA

In the use of data, having a centralizing structure is the best strategy for adequate decision making. Current agricultural data is unstructured, fragmented and dispersed. It needs to be organized and prepared for further analysis through different methods such as statistics software, machine learning, integration of fuzzy logic algorithms. The final goal is integrating data on decision making systems.

Tech innovation systems in agriculture

The technological models related to farm machinery have had a different evolution in relation to structural and social conditions. Thus we have the American - Western model, capital intensive, with large machines and at the opposite the Asian model, labor intensive, with small and sophisticated machines suitable for small and family farms. Even if, in the large scale machinery, the implementation of new technologies requires less investment in percentage, all farm technical management system may have advantages by the new technology: a) measuring parameters and processes, b) assessing data by informatics models giving information optimization c) availabilit6y of tools to manage the single specific resource. That is Precision Farming.

Future trends: businness view and high tech

This topic presents the macro-design of SPA that will surely appear in the coming years and also the future technological trends in SPA applied to viticulture and arable crops. A vision of the future of SPA is presented in three layers: i) human intelligence (related to soil, plants, climate, pests, diseases, environment, food production, fibre and energy) on top; ii) artificial intelligence (related to hardware, communications, data) in the middle; iii) and again human intelligence on the bottom (consumers, business models, transparency, food traceability). “Big Data” challenges are discussed regarding the specific needs of agriculture. The technological groups identified in a Foresight Analysis report are discussed and the future technological trends on arable crops and vineyards are presented. In this topic, materials include a slide presentation, a document text and the Foresight Analysis report.