RE.CAP: reinforcing CAP through automated checks and self-assessment

Grigorios Varras; Nicholaos Petalidis; Konstantinos Kountouris; Olga Tzouvara

doi:10.1117/12.2570769

26 August 2020 RE.CAP: reinforcing CAP through automated checks and self-assessment

Grigorios Varras, Nicholaos Petalidis, Konstantinos Kountouris, Olga Tzouvara

Proceedings Volume 11524, Eighth International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2020); 1152404 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2570769
Event: Eighth International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2020), 2020, Paphos, Cyprus

Abstract

The Common Agricultural Policy, and specifically the part referring to Cross Compliance (CC) is the main tool with which the European Union promotes and enforces environmentally sound practices in agriculture. CC requirements however are extremely complex. Additionally, on-the-spot checks (inspections), the main tool for checking compliance, report ex post facto, are expensive and difficult to perform due to their low level of controllability and verifiability. This paper presents results from the work that has been carried out under RE.CAP (EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Grant Agreement No. 693171). The project aimed at: a) simplifying CC rules, b) facilitating compliance of the farmers with the CC rules and c) reducing the burden of checking cross-compliance while at the same time increasing the controllability and verifiability level of the inspections, through remote sensing, self assessment and acting ex-ante. The novelty of this work is that it presents how remote sensing results are incorporated in a real-world system in a form of a pilot that covered a major part of Thessaly (Greece), including 140 farmers and more than 80 agro-consultants. The remote-sensing algorithms used mainly Sentinel-2 images, and provided accurate crop classification for all five major crops that make up 85% of the Greek agricultural land. The presentation will show: a) the RE.CAP system and how remote sensing algorithms were incorporated in it, b) how inspections validated the results, c) The results of the satisfaction survey and d) real-data estimation of the administrative burden reduction due to RE.CAP. Overall, the work presented here shows for the first time that an integrated solution combining farmers and inspector participation through self-assessment and remote sensing using Sentinel-2 open data can practically be employed and used to carry out environmental monitoring and protection on a national level.

Citation Download Citation

Grigorios Varras, Nicholaos Petalidis, Konstantinos Kountouris, and Olga Tzouvara "RE.CAP: reinforcing CAP through automated checks and self-assessment", Proc. SPIE 11524, Eighth International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2020), 1152404 (26 August 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2570769

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