H2020 NextLand Project: Next-generation land management services for agriculture and forestry
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2020 -2023
- Assigned Budget 3.420.571,43 €
- Scope Europeo
- Autonomous community Castilla - La Mancha; Madrid, Comunidad de
- Main source of financing Horizon 2020
- Project website https://doi.org/10.3030/869520
A new, holistic, high-tech approach can help ensure the future sustainability of Europe's agricultural and forestry resources. To this end, the EU-funded NextLand project will develop 15 operational commercial Earth observation services for agriculture and forestry. Within the framework of a common delivery platform, co-designed with farmers, forest producers, and agronomic or forestry consulting firms, the services will be able to leverage GEOSS and Copernicus data and products across seven use cases. Overall, the project will create an ecosystem showcasing the strengths of European service providers across the entire value chain of the high-tech agroforestry sector.
Overall, the NextLand project has made significant progress beyond the state-of-the-art in EO-based solutions for the European agricultural and forestry sectors by establishing a comprehensive operational platform for 17 macro-commercial midstream services, achieving its objectives of expanding market reach and delivering economic, social, and political value to European citizens. The project's success is reflected in the diverse range of services offered, the extensive promotional activities undertaken, and the efforts toward long-term commercial sustainability.
Looking ahead, NextLand is well positioned to continue its growth and innovation in the Earth observation sector, further contributing to the advancement of the agricultural and forestry industries.
At the end of the project, NextLand has the following main results:
- Service Portfolio Expansion: NextLand successfully integrated 17 EO-based commercial services related to agriculture and forestry into its offering, provided by six different institutions.
- Engagement and Collaboration: The project maintained an active participation in the EuroGEOSS initiative, contributing to the Agriculture and Land Use/Land Cover action groups. Additionally, NextLand engaged with six alpha users and 11 beta users from diverse target markets, gathering requirements, testing services, and receiving feedback for continuous improvement.
- Market Development: NextLand's efforts led to significant sales activities, resulting in 600 sales leads, 79 trade show and event contacts, 20 potential customers, 3 business agreements, and ongoing negotiations.
- Capacity building: Several webinars, workshops, demonstrations, and bilateral meetings were organized to enhance users' knowledge and skills in utilizing NextLand services.
- Service Validation: The project conducted comprehensive evaluations of the service's reliability and usability through user reviews, surveys, and UI/UX evaluations. This iterative process ensured continuous improvement and alignment with user needs. Key impacts to highlight include:
- Market mobilization: NextLand contributed to the development of a massive market for Earth observation-based services in agriculture and forestry by engaging dynamic players across Europe and organizing exhibition events. This market-focused approach facilitated collaboration and positioned NextLand as a mid-range EO product provider.
- Business Model Innovation: NextLand's business model overcame industry fragmentation by federating European midstream EO service providers. The platform offers a wide range of services at competitive prices, positioning itself as a one-stop shop for both service providers and end-users.
- Validation and Differentiation: Through event participation and sales engagements, NextLand validated its value proposition and business approach. It identified market opportunities, competitive strategies, and potential partnerships to ensure continued growth and innovation.
Throughout the NextLand project, significant progress has been made toward its objectives. The consortium fully achieved its goal of establishing a common service delivery platform, with the NextLand online store now integrating 17 commercial midstream agriculture and forestry services.
These services, from six providers, are based on Copernicus and GEOSS data collection, co-developed with input from alpha and beta users, and are continuously refined, including with in-situ validation data. A key focus was engagement with European commercial sectors in agriculture and forestry, involving alpha users from different markets to co-design services and provide feedback.
Additional beta users were selected from several European regions to ensure broad coverage. Promotional efforts included creating user scenarios, identifying target markets, participating in trade events, and launching a large-scale email marketing campaign supported by communications materials. Capacity-building efforts included webinars, workshops, bilateral meetings, and presence at key events.
To ensure long-term sustainability, target markets and valuable services were identified, pricing strategies were designed, and sales forecasts were executed. Engagement with partners and ongoing customer conversations solidified NextLand's market position. The exploitation strategy involves leveraging NextLand's service portfolio and market commitment to drive commercial success, including ongoing collaboration with EO service providers, targeted sales efforts, and business model refinement to adapt to market dynamics.
NextLand aims to capitalize on its position as a one-stop shop for EO services, offering bundled solutions and customizable offerings to meet diverse user needs.
NextLand strives to develop a comprehensive suite of operational EO-based services for agriculture and forestry within a shared service delivery platform, leveraging GEOSS and Copernicus data collections and products (namely Sentinel 1, 2, and 3 imagery and meteorological datasets) complemented by the absorption of other very high-resolution EO and in situ data streams. It acts as a one-stop shop for value-added service providers and end-users, offering single or bundled EO services tailored to specific needs. Developed in co-creation with a broad set of users, these services prioritize high accuracy, up-to-date information, rapid on-demand access, high customization, and competitive pricing.
By facilitating service providers' offerings to mid-markets and technologically savvy end-users, NextLand addresses the diverse user requirements in both sectors. The project aims to revolutionize EO service delivery by emphasizing verifiable accuracy and consistency, while offering seasonal data collection, tailored solutions, freely accessible EO data, and personal support services. By ensuring the reliability and reproducibility of processes and outcomes, NextLand aims to streamline decision-making and implementation in the forestry and agricultural sectors. Key project objectives include co-designing commercial services, promoting international service adoption across vertical markets, and ensuring long-term commercial sustainability with viable business plans. As a key outcome, NextLand successfully integrated 17 agriculture and forestry-related EO-based commercial services from six institutions into a single, operational online store.
The project created an ecosystem to demonstrate the strengths of European service providers across the entire value chain of the high-tech agricultural and forestry sectors. NextLand's business model overcomes sector fragmentation by federating European midstream energy service providers and offering a wide range of services at competitive prices.
NextLand (Next Generation Land Management Services for Agriculture and Forestry) aims to develop a suite of 15 operational commercial Earth Observation (EO) services for mid-stage agriculture and forestry, under a common service delivery platform. This suite of services is based on GEOSS and Copernicus data and products, complemented by the integration of other very high-resolution EO and in situ data streams.
This suite of services will be jointly designed with intermediate service providers, such as agronomic or forestry consulting firms, and institutions that interact with farmers and forest producers, within seven use cases. This will create an ecosystem that demonstrates the strengths of European service providers across the entire value chain of the high-tech agroforestry sector.
The co-design approach seeks to break the cycle of service development with a limited group of end-users from the same region, which often results in solutions tailored to the needs of a specific midstream service provider, usually with a strong regional bias and therefore difficult to scale to other regions. This approach will ensure the scalability of services on a more global scale and, consequently, is expected to significantly increase the adoption of EO-based midstream services by downstream providers. Involving alpha and beta users in service design is key to improving its applicability and reliability for potential customers worldwide.
Agriculture and forestry are important socioeconomic sectors, together accounting for almost 75% of land use in the EU. Both are also highly vulnerable to climate change and require significant energy and water inputs. Improving their sustainability and resilience, while enhancing their productivity, is essential for the well-being of the EU economy, its citizens, and the planet. Earth observation services for the agricultural and forestry sectors are making an important contribution to achieving these goals, and the number of service providers and services is increasing. The EU-funded NextEarth project created an innovative business model, connecting service providers with users to accelerate adoption and impact.
Co-creation of many services that address user scenarios “NextLand offers 28 services, all based on Copernicus data collections, including the Sentinel 1, 2, and 3 satellites, as well as the Copernicus Climate Change and Atmosphere Monitoring services. They are grouped according to several key user scenarios identified through a co-creation process with selected stakeholders and addressing key sustainability objectives of the agricultural and forestry sectors,” explains project coordinator Nuno Grosso of Deimos. The improved crop monitoring and yield prediction services enable early detection of problems and optimization of fertilization and irrigation to minimize environmental impact.
The Irrigation Support Services package offers cutting-edge techniques and technologies for more efficient water use and increased production. Crop Planning Optimization provides advice on optimal locations and conditions for crop cultivation to achieve the highest yields with minimal soil degradation. Other packages include early detection of stressors (such as pests, diseases, and drought) and impact reduction, forest regeneration, and fire risk and impact assessment, including services to minimize both risk and impact. A unified market-based business model: NextLand's one-stop shop enables Earth observation service providers to accelerate their service introductions to the market, helping them expand their markets and reduce operating costs.
End users benefit from individual or bundled Earth observation services that are highly accurate, deliver near real-time information, are customizable, and are offered at competitive prices,” Grosso summarizes. Soil Essentials, an agricultural consulting firm that offers integrated precision farming solutions and an alpha user of NextLand, agrees: “Our main benefit is quick and easy access from a single platform to many services from some of Europe’s best service providers, ensuring high quality. The store’s [application programming interface] automates... data delivery and integration into our services and supports a remote payment system.” Future-oriented and actively expanding NextLand is actively expanding its business model, growing its service provider and customer network.
A partnership with CONFAGRI, a confederation of Portuguese agricultural cooperatives with diverse crops and thousands of members, is one example. Its goal is to promote NextLand services to CONFAGRI members, forming the basis for the technical consulting services offered by CONFAGRI. Grosso adds: "If you are creating an Earth observation algorithm or application for agriculture or forestry and aiming to commercialize it, NextLand offers support to develop an operational service with clear service information and pricing structures. If you are focused on enhancing your research with reliable Earth observation-based products for agriculture or forestry, explore our portfolio of services to improve the quality of your results." NextLand's one-stop shop for Earth observation services is streamlining the connection between service providers and service users to improve the sustainability, resilience, and productivity of agriculture and forestry.
- DEIMOS ENGENHARIA SA
- BODEMKUNDIGE DIENST VAN BELGIE
- VLAAMSE INSTELLING VOOR TECHNOLOGISCH ONDERZOEK N.V.
- ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS
- VANDERSAT BV
- DEIMOS SPACE UK LIMITED
- DEIMOS ENGINEERING AND SYSTEMS SLU
- EUROPEAN FOREST INSTITUTE
- UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA
- DHI GRAS AS
- SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS
- TERRADUE SRL
- SOILESSENTIALS LIMITED
- DEIMOS SPACE SOCIEDAD LIMITADA UNIPERSONAL
- CORDIS project factsheet (pdf)
- Project website and social media package
- DEIMOS ENGENHARIA SA website
- VLAAMSE INSTELLING VOOR TECHNOLOGISCH ONDERZOEK NV website
- ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS website
- EUROPEAN FOREST INSTITUTE website
- DHI GRAS AS website
- SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS website
- Website of DEIMOS SPACE SINGLE-PERSON LIMITED COMPANY
Related projects
