European Organisation of Agricultural, Rural and Forestry Contractors
Boulevard Anspachlaan 111 b13 - B-1000 Brussels +32 (0)2 274 22 06 - ceettar@ceettar.eu
16.11.2017
European land-based contractors welcome the update of the Recommendation of forest companies, forestry contractors and machine manufacturers in Finland (original version in Finnish; English translation not legally verified).
As all other economic sectors, digital technology and information are moving agricultural and forestry sectors in a new era where data will play a crucial role to the benefit of the whole farming and forestry businesses. Data produced by machines and their devices, data aggregated, processed and analysed, make it possible to realise substantial improvements in many aspects of the production processes and create already today a new vision for agriculture and forestry.
Almost all operations in farming and forestry sectors are concerned by this (r)evolution which allows contractors:
Obviously all stakeholders (farmers, forest owners, contractors, machinery manufacturers, purchasers…) are interested in creating and collecting data. However, even if all kinds of collection of data are important for the development of the agricultural and forestry sectors, the use of data differs from a stakeholder to another. For instance in an operation executed by an agricultural contractors, some data are useful for the farmers, others for the contractors to improve their business and other data for the authorities. This is by no means an exhaustive list but it gives an indication of the many activities taking place.
It is important for all contractors to be aware of these changes and of their increasing influence in the agricultural and forestry value chain so that they can embrace the evolution and bring answer to upcoming challenges.
At the same time, contractors as well as national and European organisations representing them already identified the challenges and categorized them as legal, economical and technical constraints.
Land-based contractors, their national and European representations are willing to cooperate as soon as possible with all stakeholders (manufacturers, farmers, universities…) on this sensitive but crucial issue , as it has already been successfully done in Finland last week.