Farming: Enterprise Ireland funding backs AI solution to CAP compliance
Pictured, from left, Nakul Wali, Enterprise Ireland, Christine O'Meara, Walton Institute, SETU, Richard Rodgers, VoxGig, and Dr James O'Sullivan, TTO, SETU.
Walton Institute at South East Technological University (SETU) has secured €100k in Enterprise Ireland Proof of Concept funding to develop AgritatorAI, a next-generation artificial intelligence agricultural and land image analysis platform.
This platform is designed to speed up important business decisions and workflows using advanced machine learning with transparency built in from the beginning.
AgritatorAI’s initial development aims to automate Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) compliance verification.
CAP payments depend on photographic evidence to confirm crop type, farming activity and environmental compliance. With more than 6.2 million beneficiaries across Europe, paying agencies receive an overwhelming volume of farm imagery each year. Processing remains largely manual and unsustainable.
AgritatorAI will address this head-on by developing a production-grade AI engine capable of identifying crops, detecting land activity such as grazing, and assessing compliance features within land parcels. Unlike earlier pilots that struggled to maintain accuracy outside controlled training environments, this platform is being built specifically for real-world regulatory use.
The project is led by Christine O’Meara, Commercialisation Researcher at SETU’s Walton Institute, and builds directly on the Institute’s role in the Horizon Europe NIVA4CAP programme, which delivered the widely used AgriSnap geo-tagged photo app in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Teagasc and farmers.
“The potential of AI to process vast and complex agricultural data is undeniable.
"However, if AI is to support real payment decisions, accuracy and transparency are non-negotiable,” said Christine O’Meara.
“These systems must handle nuance, operate transparently, respect data sovereignty and meet GDPR and AI Act requirements. This project is about building AI that can be trusted in high-stakes regulatory environments.”
Nakul Wali, Senior Commercialisation Specialist at Enterprise Ireland, commented, “AgritatorAI shows how commercialising research can potentially turn Irish AI into export-ready Ag-tech, cutting CAP red tape for 6 million EU farmers and positioning Ireland to lead the next wave of compliance-tech spin-outs.”
Richard Rodgers, CEO of Voxgig and commercial partner on the project, added, "This solution shows that the intersection of machine learning, regulation and market opportunity can be bridged to create a new generation of opportunities that can responsibly meet both economic and social needs."
By reducing manual workloads and significantly improving verification accuracy, AgritatorAI is expected to enable faster claim resolution, stronger environmental monitoring and greater consistency across CAP controls.
The work builds on the Walton Institute’s success in NIVA4CAP, a Horizon Europe project involving 27 partners and nine European Paying Agencies.
The platform will use advanced machine learning architectures, including Vision Transformers and specialised neural networks optimised for agricultural image analysis. The system will operate using a modular, containerised architecture and will incorporate Explainable AI and federated learning to ensure regulatory transparency, GDPR compliance and data sovereignty.
The project will deliver multi-method confidence scoring to support reliable and auditable payment decisions by CAP Paying Agencies.
The Walton team includes Philip O’Brien (Senior Technical Lead, AI and Machine Learning), Thomas Walsh (Senior Systems Architect), and Catherine Cunniffe (Delivery Manager).
Walton Institute is an ICT research Institute within South East Technological University (SETU), specialising in ICT research, innovation and digital transformation. The institute has a strong track record in coordinating national and EU-funded research projects in areas including agritech and precision agriculture.
Notable DAFM funded projects include AgNav and agriDISCRETE. Notable EU funded projects include DIVINE, NIVA4CAP, DEMETER, SmartAgriHubs, and agROBOfood.
Richard Rodgers is the founder and CEO of voxgig.com, a professional networking and tool suite for the technology conferences and events industry. He was previously a co-founder and COO of nearForm.com, the world's largest specialist Node.js consultancy delivering next-generation enterprise software, with a focus on Node.js and microservices.
Before that, Richard was the CTO of FeedHenry, a mobile application platform provider that was acquired by RedHat in 2014. Richard is the author of The Tao of Microservices, a book from Manning focused on the design and management of microservice architectures.
Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund supports third-level researchers to translate their research into innovative and commercially viable products, services and companies. Proof of Concept Funding can be used to de-risk technology and prove concept of commercial need.
For more visit https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/supports/commercialisation-fund
