Dairy Farming

The Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) is a nationally and internationally acting research and development centre with an interdisciplinary field of basic and applied research activities at the nexus of biological and technical systems. ATB is funded by the Federal Government and the State and receives additional third-party funds of around 35% of its budget (total 2017 budget >23.5 Mio).

ATB has multi-disciplinary research teams with currently about 230 staff members, 75 of them scientists and PhD students. In 2017 scientists published over 95 reviewed papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Research at ATB is aimed at sustainable intensification of bio-economic production. It follows the approach to analyze, model and evaluate exemplary the bio-economic production system. Research follows a systemic approach focusing on fields “precision crop production”, “livestock systems” or “biomaterials” and “biochar” and others. In conclusion ATB develops and integrates new technologies and management strategies - for a knowledge-based, site-specific production of biomass, and its use for food, as raw materials and fuels - from basic research to application.

ATB coordinates the ET4D project and is deeply involved in the validation experiments and the data analysis. It will work on the data aggregation and information integration in order to create tailored reports for different target groups. In addition, ATB is a key contributor to the experimentation sites, where Dr. Janke is leading the on-farm trials for the validation of the sensor and data management system. Moreover, ATB will contribute to WP1 (dependable wireless connectivity for farms), WP3 (application data) and WP5 (dissemination, exploitation and communication) with its in-house expertise and professional network.

ATB will support the assessment of the deployed ICT equipment and connectivity ecosystem on German farms in general and the German trial site in particular. It will further support the implementation of communication performance enhancing measures, if needed, on the German trial site in close cooperation with the farm operator. ATB will support the social science studies on information needs of different target groups by identifying relevantnational representatives and making first contacts as well as by distributing surveys to relevant stakeholders and interest groups. As the activities in WP5 are strongly interlinked with the project coordination in WP6, there will be a lively exchange to coordinate local, national and international communication and dissemination activities. Moreover, ATB will contribute to the general communication and dissemination strategy through the introduction of the project’s objectives and key results to the scientific and general public, e.g. via presentations on exhibitions and conferences as well as via open-access publications or press releases.