AgNav: Trusted Solutions for Everyday Farming

AgNav is a free, nationwide, online sustainability platform for farmers, created through a partnership between Teagasc, Bord Bia, and ICBF.

AgNav has been created for Irish farmers, to support climate action and sustainability improvements on Irish farms. AgNav provides farmers with secure, accurate and verifiable data that allows them to choose the most appropriate actions tailored to their farm.

In Ireland, Teagasc is the largest agricultural advisory agency and Bord Bia (through Origin Green) and ICBF have the greatest involvement in farm data collection and analysis. AgNav utilises the three agencies’ collective knowledge to provide data, decision making support tools and guidance through one online platform. By pooling the resources of the three agencies through AgNav, we can provide one version of the truth to farmers. A further significant benefit to AgNav is that it will help to communicate the positive progress being achieved by Irish farmers.

 

Pilot stage

In March, AgNav was trialled with Signpost demonstration farmers and advisors through workshops to test the usability of the support tools. Further regional workshops will be held with Signpost farmers throughout the year. The functionality of AgNav will continue to be developed. Meanwhile, AgNav partners are regularly engaging with farming and industry stakeholders.

 

How to use AgNav

Farmers will be able to use AgNav on their own or with their advisor. To use AgNav, a farmer will navigate between three phases: assess; analyse; act.  

To begin, the farmer assesses their current farm performance in relation to greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions. AgNav displays total farm emissions, emissions per hectare and carbon footprint or emission per output (kilos of live weight gain or kilos of fat and protein corrected milk for dairy). The sustainability survey, completed by Bord Bia members, captures the farm activity data necessary to make these calculations.

The farmer can then analyse the impact of changes to farm practices using a Forecaster Tool. The Forecaster Tool analyses changes to fertiliser use, grazing periods and slurry management. In time, additional metrics will be added to the forecaster tool to give farmers a broader range of actions to consider, including age at slaughter, EBI and concentrates fed (see future timeline).

Finally, the farmer uses the Action Planner to create a sustainability action plan based upon the most appropriate actions for their farm. The plan will include actions, targets and timelines for implementation and completion.

AgNav is currently available to dairy and beef farmers but will be extended to sheep and other enterprises, as the functionality and usability of AgNav continues to develop.

Currently, there are two ways for a farmer to use AgNav: by joining the free Teagasc Signpost Advisory programme or through affiliated processor programmes. To sign-up for the Teagasc Signpost Advisory Programme, visit the Teagasc website. For more information visit www.agnav.ie.

 

 

Future Timeline

	Short term (3-4 months)	Medium term (12 months)	Long term (36 months)
Development		· Sheep GHG model · Tillage GHG model · Mapping – water	· Biodiversity assessment. · Pig, poultry, egg, and horticulture models.
Functionality	· Age at slaughter. ·  Concentrate feed. ·  Production.	· Animal inventory changes. · Economic impact.	· Carbon trading
Integration		· Pasturebase · NMP