Converting Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) into Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) : executive summary

The European Green Deal (GD), with its Farm to Fork (F2F) and Biodiversity strategies, has set environmental and climate goals for farming to help reach the EU's 2050 climate neutrality objective. The 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will be one of the main delivery mechanisms to achieve these targets. The conversion of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) into the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) will be critical in advancing these objectives by monitoring the progress towards these goals, alongside other objectives of the CAP, and enabling a holistic view of the EU agricultural sector. This pilot project supports the conversion of the FADN into the FSDN. The core of the project revolved around identifying sustainability data and assessing their feasibility to be collected within the FSDN. These data encompass nine environmental topics, four social topics, and three economic topics. Moreover, the pilot project analysed the FADN IT systems in the Member States and their interoperability and compatibility with other existing data collection systems, such as the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS). The analysis has included the review of novel tools to support the farm-level sustainability data collection, the assessment of farmers' motivation to participate to the FADN/FSDN and the usefulness of reporting and benchmarking FADN/FSDN data. Finally, the pilot project assessed the feasibility of a unique farm ID in the EU and of a unique IT system for farm-level data collection.