Our goal is to make field boundary data easily accessible to provide the building
blocks of new products to support the transition to a nature-positive food system
France
9.000.000 boundaries
Global FieldID™ Coverage
1. What is the difference between a field and a boundary?
FIELD
|
BOUNDARY
|
One Field ID can connect many boundaries IDs
Seasons
Harvest 2021, Harvest 2022, etc.
Users
User 1 of field 1, user 2 of field 1
Origins
Government LPIS, grower’s FMIS, earth observations
Practices
Delineated, Fertilizer, Harvest boundary, Etc.
FIELD ID 1
Boundary IDs are based on geometry and spatial delineation of a land parcel.
New boundary IDs are created within a field ID based on practise, season, user and origin.
Field ID is not tied tightly to geometry like a boundary ID.
It has a degree of permanence beyond seasons and retains history over time.
2. What is the relationship between fields and boundaries?
We have a 1-to-many relationship between fields and boundaries. However, each field always has one active boundary, defining its spatial footprint at a time, which must not overlap with any other field’s active boundary.
The Global FieldID product allows any number of boundaries to be registered, and thus any point on the map might have multiple boundaries representing specific operations.
The boundary of a field can change over time, but the history is retained using a link between the field and boundary, each of which has a timestamp. Any ‘old’ boundary is retained. This helps application developers to maintain an up-to-date view as boundaries change.
3. How does Global FieldID keep track of changes to fields over time?
The Global FieldID product tackles changes over time by decoupling the concept of the field and its boundaries and storing history.
There are two types of changes:
Changes to the boundary that don’t turn it into a different field.
Changes to the boundary that turn it into a different field (e.g., splits, merges, and farmland development).
4. What is the relationship between fields and crop zones polygons?
A crop zone is identified as a boundary within the Global Field ID product (GFID). A boundary ID can be used to identify a specific area of land within the field because GFID also allows the registration of multiple boundaries.
5. Does Global Field ID support all kinds of different field shapes?
Yes. Alongside the primary boundary used to define the location of a field, there can be other types of boundaries, each used for a specific purpose. Even if there is a region within the field, spanning multiple fields or a region that is not part of any field, it can be identified with a boundary ID.
We will soon introduce the ability for API client applications to register such boundaries on behalf of their users.
6. Does Global FieldID plan to serve smallholder farmers outside Europe?
The Global FieldID product aims to have a complete set of boundaries for each country it covers.
We currently have coverage of the UK, France, and the Netherlands, and we are planning a rollout in the Americas during 2023 (starting with Brazil and the US). We expect smallholder geographies in Asia and Africa to be added in 2024.
However, we will soon introduce the capability for users of the GFID product to create field IDs by submitting boundaries from anywhere in the world, even without having done the rollout for that country.
7. Does Global FieldID store information about the field (e.g., carbon footprint)?
The Global FieldID API only collects metadata about the field itself and does not hold any type of data (e.g., data about farmers’ practices).
We believe that GFID should be an enabler for all, and not compete with existing data providers or farm management applications. It aims to be a “universal language” that ensures data exchange between applications and data discovery throughout the supply chain.
8. What is the format of a Global FieldID?
There are two main types of identifiers in the Global FieldID product:
The Global FieldID, designed to be reliably communicated in both digital and non-digital channels. It is a short sequence of characters, like this: 15KW.V5JZ
The Global BoundaryID is designed for software data exchange, and is a UUID, like this: 2bbc9443-7b65-4a9c-806b-78d20298ab4b
Further technical information is available on our Developer Portal.