ABACO, a NIVA partner, has released in 2021 a new version of ABACO GEOPHOTO, the app for hand-held devices to collect photographic evidence with certified location data, built with and for farmers.
ABACO GEOPHOTO is currently supporting for more than three years several national and regional Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Paying Agencies. Farmers and surveyors are pro-actively involved in a variety of situations in CAP checks and management, including Rapid Field Visits (RFV), update of the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), ground truthing and supporting the Checks by Monitoring. The app fully responds to the current technical requirements and recommendations of the EU Commission.
Being designed with and for farmers, the app includes several additional capabilities, like a chat, a calendar, a task list, navigation to target, and much more. Beyond the app, the system includes backend management capabilities required to handle the large amount of data collected and to support decisions.
It is also used to collect information in Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS), to collect documentation on crop growth, and to enable data exchange with Consultants and Farm Advisors. This is done alongside new capabilities to capture additional field data.
The newer version of ABACO GEOPHOTO includes the EGNSS4CAP libraries from the European Space Agency (EUSPA, former GSA) to fully exploit the capabilities of the Galileo satellite constellation and becoming a perfect example on how a commercial provider has given continuity to a previous public investment in baseline technology.