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Farm&Food hub launched in Garrel

In spring 2023, agmadata launched the Farm&Food Hub in Garrel. The new working environment serves as a creative exchange among each other, with research and industry, and also enables a practical connection to local companies. Future workplaces have been created in an open co-working space in the countryside, which start-up companies can rent at favorable conditions. This means that they not only become users of the hub, but can actively participate in the animal and food-related projects that are created there. “The aim of the projects is for farmers, producers and consumers alike to recognize the potential that scientific findings hold. Nowhere in Germany are there better conditions for such a converter station between science and practice. After all, Oldenburger Münsterland and the neighboring regions are the center of livestock and food production with complex production processes and all the associated challenges,” says agmadata Managing Director Voßmann.

The projects are technologically underpinned by a digital platform that agmadata is implementing under the name 360°efood. It is used for fact-based, secure digital collaboration among all stakeholders in public spaces and enables industry-specific information exchange based on Fraunhofer’s Industrial Data Spaces (IDS). agmadata is a member of the International Data Spaces Association, where it is driving the Farm & Food IDS architecture and realizing a wide variety of use cases with 360°efood, from animal production to food on the plate. The goal is clearly set: “Everything we do must ultimately bring a sustainable benefit, including an economic one, and we must be able to clearly prove this with hard facts.”

The building is also sustainable

For the concept of the building, Voßmann found inspiration in Austria, more precisely in Lustenau in Vorarlberg. This is where the “Office Building 2226” is located, which does not require any heating, ventilation or cooling at all and yet always keeps the indoor climate at a comfortable temperature of between 22 and 26 degrees. In the new office octagon in Garrel, which is currently being built on a footprint of 20×20 m, the thick exterior walls also ensure that the indoor climate is completely decoupled from the outdoor climate. “Thus, the heat output of the people and equipment working there, as well as intelligent ventilation, are completely sufficient to achieve the desired temperature. It doesn’t get any more sustainable than this,” says the resourceful entrepreneur, who has nevertheless provided an intelligent backup system for extreme climate situations.