Data-linked field boundaries open new opportunities for agri-food sector

Agrimetrics have used best-in-class satellite imagery and cutting-edge AI to map all 2.8 million UK field boundaries

The lack of accurate field boundaries has been a pain point for the agri-food sector since the Rural Payments Agency stopped making these publicly available. To solve this, Agrimetrics has used artificial intelligence to identify the UK’s field boundaries from satellite imagery supplied by Airbus. These boundaries were then connected to more than a billion other data points – creating an unrivalled resource for stakeholders across the agri-food sector.

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Agrimetrics, one of four agri-tech centres at the heart of the UK Government’s Agricultural Technologies strategy, have used artificial intelligence and satellite imagery up to 13 times the resolution of the industry standard to identify 2.8 million field boundaries across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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Professor Richard Tiffin, Agrimetrics’s Chief Scientific Officer, explains the reason behind this:

“In addition to vast archives of historical information, our sector is capturing huge volumes of new data every day. Unfortunately, this data is rarely filtered by field level. As a result, drawing insights or creating products which can improve land management is often not possible – despite the required data being available.”

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Field Boundaries act as a cookie cutter for this data. Data sets which could previously only be viewed by region or county can now be viewed from the perspective of an individual field. This has profound implications for a range of stakeholders.

Software developers will be able to improve user experience, input manufacturers can increase the efficacy and sustainability of their products and researchers can undertake innovative and important research – producing practical insights which improve farm management.

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Taking field boundaries a step further

Accessing Field Boundaries through Agrimetrics brings several additional benefits, as Tiffin explains further:

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A screenshot showing a field boundary and data points linked with that field, including a soil chemistry graph. This screenshot was taken from ‘Field Explorer’, a free tool which lets you visualise the data held in Agrimetrics, including Field Boundaries.

“Field Boundaries provide a detailed digital map of the UK’s farmed landscape, what’s less well known is that they also provide a framework for organising and assembling data and the foundations for building new products.”

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“Here, Agrimetrics have provided a short-cut. We have linked our 2.8 million field boundaries to over a billion additional data points, including weather, previous cropping and soil composition. This expands the applications of field boundaries and provides significant time- and cost-savings for our users.”

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“When the required information is not available through Agrimetrics, Field Boundaries provide the building blocks for assembling and analysing third party data. Processing satellite data is one example. Field Boundaries act as cookie cutters to slice up satellite imagery in order to provide summary statistics for all of the individual fields in the UK.”

“This will enable the development of products which could measure in-season crop health and productivity – without ever having to visit a field.”

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In other applications, farmers can access metrics for their fields and benchmark against fields with similar attributes. With more information at hand more easily, agronomists can make better recommendations. Land agents can develop a better understanding of land assets, in less time and using fewer resources. And agri-tech innovators can accelerate the development of the smart tools, devices and predictive models which promise to revolutionise productivity and sustainability in our sector: wHen2gO, a water stewardship tool created by BASF, is just the first example of this.

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Thirteen times the resolution of the industry standard

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The second key differentiator of Agrimetrics Field Boundaries is their level of precision, explained here by Kathryn Berger, who leads the data science team responsible for bringing Field Boundaries to life:

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“To create field boundaries, we trained a machine learning algorithm to look at satellite data, identify the land features which distinguish fields, and use these features to highlight the field boundaries.”

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“Where Agrimetrics differs from other providers, however, is in the precision of the satellite data we use. Whereas industry standard satellite imagery might have a spatial resolution of 10 to 20 metres, we used premium SPOT satellite imagery supplied by Airbus, which has a resolution of just 1.5 metres. The increased precision of our source data gives our algorithm a distinct advantage when identifying field boundaries.”

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Kathryn Berger

Data Science Team Leader, Agrimetrics

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A case study: Glas Data

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Rob Sanders, Co-founder of Agritech business Glas Data, explains how they’re using Agrimetrics Field Boundaries:

“Our business has the same goal as Agrimetrics. We’re all about helping farmers improve efficiencies and increase yields in a sustainable way. Agrimetrics Field Boundaries will enable us to significantly enhance the usability and utility of our products. Farmers will be able to interrogate data for their fields at the touch of a button and use this information to make better management decisions and predictions.

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“The power of Agrimetrics Field Boundaries is in its interconnectivity with other datasets. Because Agrimetrics makes the data available via API, we can easily integrate it with our software and other third party data that we already hold. The field is the starting point and all other data can be pulled into this view,” concludes Sanders.

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Robert Sanders

Co-Founder, Glas Data

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Field Boundaries from Agrimetrics is available in two pricing models. Subscription-based pricing gives users access to the field boundaries they want, linked to other data on the Agrimetrics platform. Whereas the pay-as-you-go model lets users download only the field boundaries they want.

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Find out more about Agrimetrics data-linked Field Boundaries

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Find out more

About Agrimetrics

Agrimetrics is one of four agri-tech centres at the heart of the UK Government’s Agricultural Technologies strategy. Our mission is to catalyse innovation in the sector through the use of big data and advanced analytics. We do this by providing easy and affordable access to data, a platform for sharing and connecting complex data, and our own data science and AI expertise.

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About the four centres
The Agri-Tech Centres are a unique collaboration between Government, academia and industry to drive greater efficiency, resilience and wealth across the agrifood sector. A £90m investment from the UK’s strategic innovation agency (Innovate UK) is enabling the Centres to harness leading UK research and expertise as well as build new infrastructures and innovation.

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