Project launch: Building regional food systems through artificial intelligence

The joint project "Stadt-Land-Fluss" (SLF), which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, BMEL), was launched on 1 June. Together with 19 other partner organisations, the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) is researching how to strengthen the regional food system by developing digital data platforms for economic and nutritional data using artificial intelligence (AI) methods.

Background and objectives of the project
Consumers want more regional products and more transparency when shopping. Regional producers, in turn, need sufficient information on the needs and purchasing behaviour of their customers. In order to improve the supply of regional food and strengthen the regional economy, the project aims to create transparency along food value chains. The aim is to use digital innovation, such as the data- and AI-supported development and strengthening of value chains, to make the current food system more sustainable and efficient. This transformation requires a reliable database with high-quality spatial and temporal data, which will be collected at local level in the project. The regional aspect is central to this: the region, municipalities and consumers are involved. To this end, the stakeholders will be networked via a prototypical, digital, interoperable, transferable and scalable platform for nutritional data in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, thereby matching supply and demand. As a result, methods and data should be available on the basis of which new services can be developed.

Implementation
The implementation of the project is planned along work packages in which each partner contributes its expertise. A total of twenty partner organisations are working together under the coordination of Fraunhofer FOKUS. HNEE is playing a leading role in the following areas:

At the beginning, a needs and requirements analysis is to be carried out, which will record requirements for the urban-rural-river system architecture, taking into account stakeholders, use cases, data situation and market as well as system security and data protection. This forms the basis for the techniques and tools to be developed.

For the collection of process and nutritional data, various data resources of stakeholders are defined and a user interface is established. The result should be a well-founded collection of data and a definition of the associated data management and data acquisition processes.

The piloting and evaluation of a Berlin-Brandenburg demonstrator will take up a large part of the project duration. The database will be developed on the basis of two reference companies in the food industry. The additional inclusion of end customers from a use case such as school catering or canteen catering will test data retrieval from the platform using an AI application. The digital pilot applications developed are repeatedly tested with the involvement of stakeholders with the aim of improving them in terms of user-friendliness and acceptance, for example.

At the same time, an impact analysis will be carried out to assess the potential effects of the urban-rural flow system on user behaviour, supply and demand behaviour with regard to sustainability aspects. With the help of stakeholders, relevant factors and indicators for the multidimensional sustainability assessment of regionalised and sustainable food systems will be identified. The starting point for the research and prototypical implementation of a Sustainable Food Chain Impact Assessment (SIA) are indicator sets from established assessment systems such as the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Criteria System for Sustainable Agriculture (Kriteriensystem Nachhaltige Landwirtschaft, KSNL).

The consortium
The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems in Berlin (FOKUS) is leading the project as the consortium coordinator. Nine directly funded cooperation partners are also involved in the project: the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Deutsche Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, DFKI), Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE), PIELERS GmbH, Technische Universität Berlin, GHS GRUBER & HUFNAGEL Softwareentwicklung GmbH, Verband der Digitalwirtschaft Berlin-Brandenburg SIBB e.V., pro agro-Verband zur Förderung des ländlichen Raumes in der Region Brandenburg-Berlin e.V., Lienig Wildfruchtverarbeitung GmbH and Terra Naturkost Handels KG.
Other associated or subcontracted partners are the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik und der Bioökonomie e.V., ATB) in Potsdam, the Ernährungsrat Berlin e.V. (Berlin Food Council) and grad9 Unternehmergesellschaft in Berlin, grad9 Unternehmergesellschaft in Berlin, inter 3 Institut für Ressourcenmanagement in Berlin, Lobetaler Bio Molkerei in Biesenthal, Märkisches Landbrot GmbH in Berlin, the Berlin Senate Department for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination, StoneOne AG in Berlin, the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung, ZALF) e.V. in Müncheberg and BELANU Beratung in Werdershausen.

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