Get Involved: ISO Strategic Advisory Group on Smart Farming
7/28/2021
Respond to ANSI by August 13, 2021
As the U.S. member body to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) invites prospective experts and leaders to join a new ISO Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) on smart farming, recently formed by the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB). ANSI and DIN, the German national organization for standardization, will co-lead the group, which was created to help address increasing pressure on the food chain from global challenges such as climate change, population growth, and risk from pandemics.
What is Smart Farming?
Smart farming refers to the modern use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in agriculture. According to ISO's overview of the SAG on smart farming, apart from the challenges of climate change and food security for the world's population, there are a range of technological challenges, foremost among which is the issue of interconnectivity across the entire value chain of the food industry.
To that end, the general concept of smart farming is to interconnect the entire value chain, from farm to retailer to fork, and everything in between. The seamless connection of these processing units requires open interfaces and standardized data formats.
Within ISO, there are numerous standards development committees are either already working on – or will soon be involved in – the technological developments happening in their individual fields that are connected to the subjects of smart farming and sustainable food production. As part of its mandate, the new SAG on smart farming will look for synergies and opportunities in the existing work, as well as identifying any gaps.
Goals of the ISO Strategic Advisory Group on Smart Farming
To further address developments related to smart farming, the new SAG on smart farming will be composed of experts, one from each interested ISO member. A consultative group of one representative of any interested ISO or IEC committees will be established to provide the SAG with useful information on their existing work as well as other insights to support the SAG’s work.
Furthermore, the SAG plans to form subgroups to pursue specific subjects, and these subgroups will provide opportunities for additional experts to be directly involved, beyond those named to the SAG at the top level.
The main deliverable of the new SAG is expected to be a smart farming standardization roadmap, to be presented to the ISO TMB at its September 2022 meeting. Over the course of the next year, the SAG will advance its work virtually via Zoom meetings. SAG members will determine additional details about how the SAG will work.
ANSI seeks interested stakeholders to join the SAG on smart farming, and experts who may have interest in:
- serving as the ANSI co-leader of the SAG with Mr. Lehmann, head of business development, smart farming, DIN;
- serving as the ANSI expert on the SAG; and/or
- serving as a member of the ANSI virtual technical advisory group (VTAG) to support the ANSI expert on the SAG.
If you are interested in any of these roles or seek additional information, please contact Steven Cornish, ANSI senior director of international policy and strategy, ([email protected]) by close of business on Friday, August 13, 2021. Please provide some information on your qualifications in the field of smart farming.
