RECAP

Personalised Public Services in Support of the Implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy

Start date: 01/05/2016

Duration: 30 months

Topic: INSO-1-2015 – ICT-enabled open government

Total budget: EUR 2,669,940

Website: recap-h2020.eu

The overall objective of RECAP is to develop and pilot test a platform for the delivery of public services that will enable the improved implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). RECAP will integrate open and user-generated data into added value services, co-designed, and co-created by public authorities, farmers, and agricultural consultants.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been a major force in shaping EU agriculture through its mechanism for financial support, which accounts for nearly 40% of the EU budget. Over the years, the CAP has evolved, and today focuses its resources – among others – on sustainable agriculture and management of land. In that framework, the EU introduced the Cross-Compliance Scheme, which links farmers’ payments to meeting environmental requirements.

A few challenges have emerged for public administrations (PAs) responsible for implementation and continual monitoring of the cross-compliance scheme, mainly because of the vast array of rules and regulations that need to be followed. This results in costly and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures. On the other hand, farmers have difficulties understanding the scheme.

RECAP, an H2020 project funded under the ICT-enabled open government call (GA 693171), helps bridge the communication gap between public administrations and farmers, combining various Earth Observation (EO) tools and services into a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to simplify CAP.

RECAP is a commercial platform which embraces hybrid EO techniques, both manual and automatic. The platform makes use of publicly available geo-information, open satellite data, as well as farmer-generated data.

The RECAP platform enables remote monitoring of farmers’ compliance to environmental and other standards, whilst increasing the efficiency and transparency of public administration. Moreover, through the platform, PAs have continuous access to inspection-related details, paving the way for easier and faster future CAP inspections. RECAP also offers a set of personalized services to farmers, translating complex regulations into practical guidance. Additionally, the platform enables cost-efficient, scalable and more agile development of new added value services to support agricultural consultants.

The platform and its services will be tested under day-to-day conditions with public Paying Agencies, agricultural consultants and farmers, in 5 countries (Greece, Lithuania, Serbia, Spain, and the UK).

RECAP AT A GLANCE

Help Paying Agencies to carry out checks for cross-compliance more efficiently, accurately and faster, and therefore reduce the administrative burden.

Increase tranparency by assisting farmers to better understand how to ensure cross compliance.

Allow agricultural consultants to create new value added services.

Facilitate synergies with other initiatives, ensuring the efficient communication and understanding of the RECAP project.

Encourage involvement of stakeholders and wide public, safeguarding the transferability of results.

OUR ROLE

Serbian RECAP Pilot – Simplifying Subsidy Payments for Organic Farmers

InoSens is responsible for implementing and testing the RECAP platform as a support for public services related to the organic subsidy scheme.

Geographical scope: Northern province of Serbia – Vojvodina, and two municipalities from South of Serbia: Babušnica and Blace.

Pilot participants directly involved in the testing: Organic Farmers, Certification Bodies Staff and Representatives from the Paying Agency (Serbian Directorate for Agrarian Payments);