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According to experts, pasturing in Europe has been decreasing for many years. Today, a lot of different pieces of regulation in Germany and in Europe exist, affecting farmers when they bring their cows to pasture. Furthermore, there are social requirements for pasturing, which need to be considered. Factors like increasing relevance of animal welfare, environmental protection, and the recreational use of the environment and esthetics of landscape come into play. Therefore, scientific research and new solutions are needed. This paper aims to give an overview across selected pasture-related regulations affecting farmers in Germany and Europe. Furthermore, aspects which are not directly regulated by the government, but are expectations of society will be highlighted. Concluding from this, technological possibilities - already on market and in the pipeline of scientific research will be described. Results show that today several different attempts are made to improve pasturing. Most of these attempts focus on improvement of management tasks. Attempts also directly focus on technological improvements. It can be concluded that new tools for pasturing can increase productivity and simultaneously decrease management tasks. Nevertheless, pricing of these tools as well es the amount of bureaucracy will be the most crucial factors for their adaptation.

In recent years, digital platforms in agriculture went through a phase of acquisitions and consolidation, where big players like agrochemical companies (Agrichems) and agricultural equipment manufacturers (OEMs) worked on expanding their technology stacks to build strategic portfolios of digital service offerings. To operate farm equipment efficiently, a combination of platforms and technologies is often needed, leading to the emergence of digital Agri-ecosystems. With the rising implementation of IoT technology, digital Agri-ecosystems enable multi-layer digital services and break down established categories (cloud-based and embedded). Content providers and developers creating those digital services face three options: aggregated cloud APIs (application programming interfaces), engineering service providers with proprietary technology stacks, and dedicated IoT ecosystems offering agnostic end-to-end workflows for development and deployment (first known example: NEVONEX). It is not yet fully understood how using an end-to-end IoT ecosystem changes developer requirements in comparison to existing solutions. Therefore, in this study, an example of a multi-layer digital service is developed and tested. Expert interviews (n = 21) explore relevant developer experiences and requirements. A consecutive survey (n = 30; NEVONEX developer conference) validates the findings. Results show that IoT- ecosystems speed up development and deployment cycles, save resources, and improve interoperability in operations. Engineering service providers remain very important players. Partner management, communication, abstraction of interfaces, testing infrastructure, and early end-user input are required by developers. In conclusion, IoT- ecosystems are beneficial for multi-layer digital service development; however, to fully satisfy developers and content providers, adjustments to platform functionalities and better testing opportunities on real farms are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3 Results 3.1 Legal and social aspects of pasturing Despite the above-mentioned facts, governmental regulations need to be considered as well when farmers decide to do pasturing. Keywords: Pasture; digitization; regulations; digital transformation; cattle; Weide; Digitalisierung; Gesetzgebung; Digitale Transformation; Rinder EN Pasture digitization regulations digital transformation cattle DE Weide Digitalisierung Gesetzgebung Digitale Transformation Rinder 95 104 10 06/24/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Introduction Grasslands play an important role in various aspects of environmental protection. Aspects with positive impact are as follows: - cost reduction due to reduction in necessary machinery equipment or hours and due to lower housing costs during grazing season; - animal welfare can be strengthened as cows can express their natural behavior on a pasture; and - the health of animals is expected to be better when pasturing is offered. The decision for pasturing will increase the management tasks in many ways compared to in-barn production, and this can keep farmers from pasturing in the first place. [Extracted from the article]

Digitization is one way to fulfil the demands on agricultural logistics. The growth in farm size and new branches mean that logistics is becoming ever more complex. A simple takeover of systems from the general logistics is not possible because of the special conditions of agriculture. First offers for digital logistics in agriculture are on the market. These are usually only for small areas and not complete chains. Often there are still difficulties with data availability and interfaces. There are first solutions for digitization in logistics across several levels of trade. These work if the partners are well organized and agree. If this confidence does not exist, digital collaboration is also difficult. A big problem that still has to be solved is data ownership and privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]