GAIA Bus: Cloud Computing Services for Agro-Food Chain

Abstract

There is a great need for research and innovation in order to make the food chain to fit and cover the needs and requirements of all stakeholders of the agro-food chain. ICT and especially cloud computing could play an important role at the sustainable agro-food chain. The paper discusses an innovative cloud-based technological bus where the inter-connected entities develop and share cloud services such as farm managing, e-commerce of agrifood products, automation tools for farmers' administrative procedures, e-learning for agriculture topics, information portal, social networking for farmers, traceability services and information tools for precision farming. The Greek version of GAIA bus went online almost one year ago and at the time of writing holds approximately 570.000 subscribers. It is anticipated that in the near future the GAIA bus business penetration is going to concern European and Brazilian agricultural market.