This blog post is based on the 26th Practice Abstract from the second batch of Farmtopia Practice Abstracts.
Consumers, retailers and food businesses increasingly want more information about where agricultural products come from, how they were produced and what environmental or sustainability characteristics they have. For farmers producing high-value crops, providing this information can create additional administrative work, particularly when production data are recorded across different systems. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) approach explored through Farmtopia offers a way to connect information about an agricultural product throughout its journey from the farm to the consumer.
What is a Digital Product Passport?
A Digital Product Passport is a digital record that can provide information about a product and its journey through the value chain.
For high-value agricultural products, this can include information related to:
- the origin and production of the crop;
- farming practices and inputs;
- sustainability-related information;
- processing and handling;
- traceability throughout the supply chain.
Instead of information remaining in separate documents or databases, the DPP concept aims to make relevant product information easier to access and share between authorised actors.
For farmers, this can help turn production records into information that can be used beyond the farm itself.
Connecting farm data with the value chain
One of the challenges in agricultural traceability is that information is often collected at different stages and stored in different systems. A Digital Product Passport can provide a common digital structure for connecting this information. Farm-level data can form the starting point, with additional information added as the product moves through processing, distribution and other stages of the value chain.
This can support greater transparency while reducing the need to repeatedly collect or manually transfer the same information.
Why does this matter for farmers?
For high-value crops, traceability and production information can be important for demonstrating quality, origin and sustainability. A digital passport can help farmers and supply-chain partners communicate this information in a more structured way.
It can also support new requirements for product information and sustainability reporting by providing a digital record that can be updated and accessed throughout the product’s lifecycle. However, digital traceability also requires farmers to have confidence that the information they provide is handled appropriately. Clear rules about data access, ownership, permissions and sharing are therefore important for successful adoption.
Practical considerations for implementation
Farmers and agricultural organisations considering Digital Product Passports should first identify which information needs to be recorded and who needs access to it.Useful steps include:
- Identify relevant farm data. Determine which production, traceability and sustainability information is already collected and which additional information may be needed.
- Avoid unnecessary data collection. Only information that provides a clear purpose or meets a specific requirement should be included.
- Use interoperable systems. Digital records should be structured so that information can be transferred between different platforms rather than becoming locked into a single provider.
- Define access rights clearly. Farmers should understand who can access their data, for what purpose and under which conditions.
- Start with a manageable use case. A specific high-value crop or supply-chain process can provide a practical starting point before expanding the system.
Supporting transparency from farm to consumer: Digital Product Passports have the potential to make agricultural supply chains more transparent by creating a structured digital link between production and the information associated with the final product. For farmers producing high-value crops, the approach could provide a way to communicate production and sustainability information more efficiently while supporting traceability requirements further along the supply chain.
The Farmtopia work highlights the importance of combining digital traceability with interoperability, clear data governance and farmer control. These principles can help ensure that digital product information creates value for the whole value chain rather than becoming an additional administrative burden for farmers.
About this Practice Abstract
Official title: Digital Product Passport for high-value crops (SENTIPEDE OC SIP)
This blog post was created from Practice Abstract 26, part of the second batch of Farmtopia Practice Abstracts.
Publisher: CISC Semiconductor GmbH
Authors: Ralph Weissnegger; Martin Wögerbauer
Contacts: r.weissnegger@cisc.at; m.woegerbauer@smartgreenery.at