In order to evaluate trade-offs between agricultural use and the preservation of multiple ecosystem services, as well as to verify the services provided for environmental protection, quantifiable, credible and flexible information technology is required to assist farmers, authorities and consumers in their decision-making. The Information work package is an important interface for the exchange of information. The core here is the development and testing of an interactive, software-based multi-level information system (SMI). The SMI includes a simulation and optimisation tool, as well as a variety of visualisations to support decision-making by the various stakeholders. The system coordinates the spatio-temporal control of animal herds using virtual fences for the temporally and spatially precise grazing of the farm's pasture areas in order to maximise agricultural value creation and optimise structural and biotic diversity. The costs and effects of grazing systems are simulated, grazing systems are optimised and the use of flexible and adaptive agri-environmental measures (AEM) is enabled. Multiple levels aggregate the flood of data from remote sensing and grazing systems with virtual fencing technology into meaningful information in order to generate useful recommendations for action for different stakeholders.

On the one hand, the SMI helps farmers identify optimal grazing areas for their animals using information from remote sensing. Furthermore, the SMI can be used as an information portal for consumers and the interested public to increase transparency in the value chain.

The integration, processing and analysis of the flood of information from a wide variety of field survey and sensor data requires the development of a software solution. Data from various sources (e.g. remote sensing data, field survey and model data) is processed and made available for the SMI. The integrated data serves as a starting point for the simulation and optimisation of grazing systems and the design of agri-environmental measures.

Different user interfaces are being developed for different user groups for the direct provision of data and simulated grazing strategies.

SMI for Farmers (SMILE) – The user interface for farmers

1. Provision of information: The farmer receives all currently available agronomic and ecological information for the grassland areas on his farm.
2. Simulation and optimisation of grazing with virtual fences: Farmers can simulate the placement of virtual fences on their farmland in advance for efficient and sustainable pasture use, thereby optimising their grazing strategy both spatially and temporally. This allows farmers to assess the economic and ecological effects of their grazing strategy in advance.

SMI for public authorities (SMIBEE) – The user interface for public authorities

SMIBEE enables the ecologically effective and cost-efficient design of agri-environmental measures (AEM) for grassland using virtual fencing. Ecologically effective in this context means ensuring the protection of biodiversity. Cost-effective means making the best possible use of a given budget to achieve the maximum possible protection. In order to develop AEMs for virtual fencing, standardised regulations must be defined that lead to the achievement of protection goals and for which the farmer is remunerated. SMIBEE will allow authorities to simulate AEMs and thus determine their ecological effectiveness in advance.