Integration of Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture for Farm Management and Knowledge Exchange

The demographic growth of the last centuries has been followed by a demand for higher productivity of agriculture activities and an increase in the quality of farming products. Modern consumers seek quality by selecting foods containing high concentrations of healthy nutrients (e.g., antioxidants, vitamins, minerals) while also valuing eco-friendly practices and sustainable consumption. In line with the modern social needs, integrating Information Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions could assist in different levels of the agriculture lifecycle, such as crop monitoring, animal production, food safety, and farm management. Two aspects that are often neglected from many ICT solutions are the compilation of different data sources into the proposed software architecture and the facilitation of knowledge exchange between domain experts. In order to fill the gap of knowledge accumulation in this paper we take into consideration the PestNu architecture, as defined in section V that illustrates the different steps that are required for a complete data analysis life cycle into the development and deployment of the OpenHub platform. The OpenHub aims to cover the knowledge hub between experts with different backgrounds and promote the best practices from different users with hands-on experience.