The Finnish Food Authority selected the IT and business consulting firm CGI to continue the development and maintenance of the Finnish Land Parcel Identification System (FLPIS) according to a release. FLPIS calculates the national and EU farm subsidies that are paid by the Finnish Food Authority. With this agreement, “CGI will deliver satellite imagery, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing technologies to help the Authority improve the performance of FLPIS through advanced farmland monitoring and data processing across Finland.” This contract as an estimated value of EUR 10 million.
“It is vital that farm subsidies are paid to Finnish farmers on time and in the right amounts,” said Matti Puolimatka, director-general of the Finnish Food Authority. “Ensuring that this happens requires technology-reliable databases and accurate, up-to-date registration data. FLPIS is a critical system in this respect, which is why we need a partner with the know-how and capabilities to deal with any scenario. CGI has delivered well for us in the past, and we are pleased they were able to submit a competitive tender for this important ongoing work.”
The amount of aid that is paid out depends on the area that is under cultivation. FLPIS is a geometrical farmland data hub.
“There were more than 50,000 individual beneficiaries last year alone,” said Mikko Uotila, CGI vice-president, Central Government in Finland. “Through our managed services partnership with the Authority, our development and maintenance of FLPIS enables these payments to Finnish farmers to be made on time and in the most efficient way possible.”
Satellite imagery is important to agricultural land monitoring especially with the EU’s new Common Agricultural Policy. The data that is generated by satellites is used with the information that farmers and rural affairs authorities collect to establish aid. The imagery is essential to complete modern farmland analysis, and with the help of AI can handle the calculations of a lot of data through cloud computing.
