Digi4CSA

Digital Solutions to Foster Climate-smart Agricultural Transition

Project Information

Project	Digi4CSA – Digital Solutions to Foster Climate-smart Agricultural Transition
Duration	2023-2025
Partners	Finnish Meteorological Institute, University of Helsinki, Aalto University, Häme University of Applied Sciences
Funding	Research Council of Finland, Special RRF funding for research on key areas of green and digital transition
Budget	Total budget 2.8 million euros, of which HAMK’s share is 596 745 euros

In the Digi4CSA project, funded by the Research Council of Finland, the goal is to build a digital solution for assessing and monitoring the environmental and economic impacts of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The solution aids stakeholders in decision-making and tracking the results of CSA.

Valuable information for stakeholders.

Agriculture is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union has set ambitious emission reduction targets for this economic sector. Companies aiming to improve the resilience of agriculture to climate change and reduce its climate impact are referred to as climate-smart agriculture (CSA). Despite its promising platform, CSA is still at the pilot stage.

Digi4CSA aims to create a digital platform that connects and integrates crucial data streams for CSA to facilitate decision-making among agricultural stakeholders and enable the development of new business models and markets to expand CSA initiatives. Digi4CSA is building new accounting methods that comprehensively cover the climate and other impacts of CSA as it scales up. Digi4CSA has a broad network of partners, including Carbon Action, ACCC Flagship, the global PEcAn project, and the Ecological Forecast Initiative, along with research partners and major players in the food industry.

The official project website on the BSAG’s page

Support for mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture.

Digi4CSA aims to build a digital solution for assessing and monitoring the environmental and economic impacts of CSA in the decision-making of various stakeholders and in tracking CSA results. The digital solution consists of an IT system that integrates measurements, models, and data analytics, delivering results to different stakeholders through tailored Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Thus, such a system supports the scaling of CSA to become an industry standard in Finnish agriculture. The project collaborators are building upon their existing work, the Field Observatory, which is already a prototype for such a digital solution in its initial phase

Explore the Field Observatory

Digi4CSA objectives

To develop a method for i) collecting necessary data from farms and supply chains, ii) integrating this data into the IT system assessing CSA impacts, and iii) communicating the impacts to decision-making.
To enhance the existing decision-making systems of stakeholders (farmers, businesses, policymakers, and consumers) with the developed digital solution, thus aiding stakeholders in decision-making within a complex decision-making environment.
To create prototypes of a digital solution and APIs that quantify CSA impacts according to the needs of various stakeholders by combining data collection, modeling, artificial intelligence, and IT expertise.
To integrate the prototypes developed in point 3 with social, economic, cultural, and political factors essential to value creation within agricultural value chain stakeholders. Thus, establishing the foundation for the expansion of CSA within society.