More and more agricultural data is generated, becoming increasingly digitized, publicly accessible and comprehensive. Farm-level sustainability assessment relies on such data in order to rate the performance of farming systems and farming practices in terms of impacts or benefits to the environment, society and economy. In order to increase the availability, accessibility, interoperability and reproducibility of such data, harmonisation and standardisation efforts have been ongoing (e. g. Hestia, FAO Caliper). The project proposes reviewing data collection processes at FiBL and developing proposals for data harmonisation both internally (within FiBL) and externally (key external standards and data sources, with a focus on Switzerland, the EU and rest of world in order of importance). The project will develop a centralized data server and collection/management platform (based on LimeSurvey) and implement the sustainability assessment tools SMART in this platform. Furthermore, it will develop internal data standards, protocols, reference tables and a simple farm assessment tool ("Farm Overview of Sustainability") that demonstrates the benefits and capabilities of data harmonisation.
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