Since FarmLife II not only offers a fundamental technical improvement, but also provides farmers with more information about their results in graphical form, farmers can become more aware of their farm's strengths and weaknesses and thus determine their courses of action more precisely.
Structuring the project
FarmLife focused on two pillars of sustainability: the economy and the environment. To provide an even more in-depth analysis of the current situation, FarmLife II added four different management classes , designed to further strengthen the relationship between land management and production. For each management class, there are general farm development recommendations to ensure optimal implementation.
To support customers, FarmLife online courses in small groups , allowing for a better focus on individual farmers. FarmLife is also used in agricultural schools, employing predefined model farms in the classroom.
It is assumed that in the future, determining the economic and environmental requirements of a business will be a standard service for every research project in agriculture.
Summary Report
Between 2011 and 2016, the farm management tool FarmLife was developed by the Eco-efficiency research group of HBLFA Raumberg-Gumpenstein and the project partners of Agroscope, through the adaptation of the life cycle assessment methods from the Swiss Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment (SALCA) to Austrian conditions and the development of a digital framework for data collection and evaluation of individual farm data.
The present FarmLife II project was launched with the goal of widespread use in Austrian agriculture and integration into existing educational and advisory services. Several tasks were undertaken. Fundamental technical improvements to the software design and hardware were implemented according to current computer science standards. An additional tool was developed within FarmLife to communicate the results to individual farms. This tool not only displays the results at various production levels but also integrates all individual ecological and economic assessments within the framework of life cycle assessment. Dynamic graphics present the results in various formats, thus enabling the identification of strengths and weaknesses during consultations. Furthermore, the concept of rating classes provided a classification system that can be effectively used in developing general farm objectives. In addition to these technical and visual communication aids, a course concept for farms was developed for practical implementation. This concept offers small-group courses using digital communication media. To date, 68 courses have been offered in this format to 1,000 participants. A dedicated educational channel for schools has reached an additional 750 teachers and trainees. This area is currently being strengthened through a supplementary DaFNE project. Early in the project, during collaboration with the Chambers of Agriculture, the need for a complementary harmonization of the economic evaluation became apparent. Following the submission of the cost accounting, this section was reprogrammed and is described in Part II of this final report.
FarmLife has become a resounding success, generating not only high customer traffic but also providing the foundation for a total of 16 scientific projects within our own research department. We anticipate that the ability to determine eco-efficiency will become a standard service for every agricultural research project in the future. Whether this is achieved using a farm network or a model will be left to the researchers' discretion.
Team
Mag. Christian Fritz, MA
Department Management
Mag.a Elisabeth Finotti
Speaker, Economics and Resource Management
Dr. Markus Herndl
Department of Soil Science and Lysimetry, Head of the Eco-efficiency Research Group
Dr. Georg Terler
Milk production and animal nutrition
Isabella Zamberger
Organic farming