Maturity of Agriculture Open Data Ecosystem in Croatia – Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Although startups show great interest in sharing and re-using data, and large business systems know the value of data, data sharing is problematic and questionable. The reason is the legislation that does not have prescribed obligations and procedures for sharing data, and when data is shared, it is not properly managed at the sectoral or industry ecosystem level. For stakeholders to reap the economic benefits of using/re-using open data, strong data ecosystems supported by policies and investments are needed to ensure infrastructure and data capacity for everyone in the environment. In this paper, exploratory research was conducted and the focus is on the agricultural data ecosystem, which has a strategically relevant role in food production and feeding society but does not sufficiently use the capacities of the digital age for progress, especially the data capacities that are significant in overcoming challenges. The measurement tool was used based on the conceptual framework of open data ecosystem elements and characteristics, where the key elements are Stakeholders, Data, Infrastructure and Policy/Governance, while the parameters are defined based on the key characteristics of each element. The measurement tool was used for the evaluation of the status of the Croatian agricultural open data ecosystem and its maturity level. The data was collected by searching secondary sources (searching literature and documents, available infrastructure - platforms, applications and tools as well as analyzing the websites of relevant institutions) and in-depth interviews with stakeholders in the agricultural ecosystem. The results showed that in the Croatian agricultural open data ecosystem, elements of Stakeholders, Infrastructure and Governance/Policy were rated as Fundamental level, while the Data element showed the best trend and was rated as Effective level. The Stakeholders element was rated best by the Management and Support Organization, while the other elements were rated best by Researchers/Scientists. The lowest ratings on elements of the data ecosystem were assigned by two groups of stakeholders, Agriculture Businesses/Farmers and Consumer Organizations and Consumers. Nevertheless, there is still much room for growth and improvement in the data offered for/by all stakeholders, considering that the data offered by the Management and Support Organization and the researcher/Scientist offer and the way they do it are not suitable and useful for the business and production of the other stakeholders in the ecosystem. Significant efforts are needed to build a robust and sustainable data ecosystem in the agricultural sector.