Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1000. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine who developed the agrisnap app for recording information on farms; the amount the app cost to set up; if all the IT issues and difficulties with transfer of information from the app have been fixed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12230/24]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The AgriSnap™ was developed as a geotagged photo app, part of an EU initiative - New IACS Vision in Action (NIVA) project and in response to a H2020 call – H2020-RUR-14-2018 – Digital solutions and e-tools to modernise the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

This IT development was a collaboration between the Department, the Walton Institute and stakeholders (farmers, advisors and Department staff), in the design and vision of the app.

In November 2022 AgriSnap™ was taken under the Department’s control.

In 2023 the geotagged functionality to capture Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) Scorecards in the field was added to the app.

Any issues that arose in the early use of this functionality in 2023 were dealt with promptly and resolved. There are no known issues or bugs related to AgriSnap™.

Almost 166,000 ACRES scorecards were submitted over a 16-week period through the newly developed scorecard feature on the AgriSnap™ app. Almost 9000 of these were submitted during weekends, highlighting the flexibility and stability of the app, and rates rose as high as 4000 or more scorecards submitted within a 24hr period on several occasions.

More than 500,000ha of land was scored and due to its in-built location accuracy AgriSnap™ ensured that 100% of users were present at the correct location before completing the scorecard.

The cost to the Department to date for the development of the AgriSnap™ app is €299,444 incl vat.