(1)Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
(1)Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
Digital technologies and business models are promising but current fragmentations and misalignment are hampering breakthroughs.
Digital Agriculture is generally considered as a key technology to address the grand challenges for agriculture, such as ensuring a safe and sustainable provision of quality food, fostering resource efficiency, combating climate change and to develop the circular economy. Digital technologies, such as Internet of Things, Big Data, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, enable a transformation into data-driven, intelligent, agile, and autonomous farm operations that can be remotely controlled and are seamlessly integrated in the food chain up to the consumer.
Despite the overwhelming interest of tech companies, investors, and policymakers, the adoption rate of Digital Agriculture is still limited. In most EU member states, there is a consistent but small group of farmers that are frontrunners in this field, which are often seen as role models for other farmers. In fact, the majority of farmers does not yet adopt digital technologies or only invests in proven and tangible technologies such as auto-steering tractors or milking robots.
The current impact of digitalisation in agriculture is thus way below its true potential. Main reasons for this are the current fragmentation of knowledge and technology expertise in the proximity of farms, and the lack of promising business cases for farmers and business models for the technology providers. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that, unlike other industries, farming is more subject to sector, and region-specific conditions. Another barrier is the fragmentation and misalignment between the various types of public and private funding. Especially, where public funding ends in promising concepts or prototypes, private investors are hesitating to invest because the market potential is still unclear and it is difficult to assess the risks. Instead, they tend to invest a lot in promising start-ups, that have already a market-ready solution. However, this has led to a plethora of apps, while farmers need more integrated solutions.
SmartAgriHubs is connecting the dots for digital transformation in agri-food
To overcome these challenges, the EU-funded project SmartAgriHubs is building a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), fostering a broad digital transformation in the agri-food domain. SmartAgriHubs leverages, strengthens and connects local DIHs, connected with Competence Centres (CCs). This ‘ecosystem of ecosystems’ combines the various expertise that is needed to unleash the potential of digital solutions and realise the digital transformation of the agricultural sector in Europe (Figure 1).
SmartAgriHubs builds a strong, multi-layered network of agricultural Digital Innovation Hubs and Competence Centres, to exchange knowledge and create a pan-European market for digital solutions for farming and food production. The project combines five basic concepts that are based on validated methodologies and models (Figure 2).
A DIH refers to an ecosystem through which any business can get access to the latest knowledge, expertise and technology to test and experiment with digital technology relevant to its products, processes, or business models. It also provides the connections with investors, facilitates access to finance and helps to connect users and suppliers of digital solutions across the value chain (Figure 3).
Innovation Experiments (IEs) are developing and testing digital solutions in a real-life environment, conducted through DIHs, enabling access to the latest knowledge, expertise and technology (by CCs). IEs play a crucial role in the network expansion of SmartAgriHubs, strengthening the network of DIHs and CCs in numbers and quality of services.
SmartAgriHubs’ Innovation Portal is a web-based interactive platform and a key instrument to support the ecosystem building at DIH, regional and pan-European level. It plays a crucial, central role in building the network of DIHs and the ecosystems around them.
SmartAgriHubs has expanded the number of DIHs to more than 300 and built a network of 160+ CCs that are findable and searchable through the so-called Agricultural Technology Navigator. Over 100 trainings of all kinds to improve the DIH innovation services are available and many more useful knowledge and information is available in the Innovation Portal. Through open calls many hackathons and challenges were organised leading to approximately 60 new IEs or related innovation activities. The 6 M€ public funding from the SmartAgriHubs project itself mobilized approx. 15 M€ of additional public and private funding. In this way, a vibrant ecosystem - with the network of agricultural DIHs as a kernel – was established, that will be sustained after the project.
Matching public and private efforts in a Responsible Research and Innovation approach
In conclusion, the digital transformation of agri-food has entered a situation where innovations have proven to be promising, but must be upscaled to a higher level of adoption and broader integration. The nature of digitalisation is evolving and has become part of a more complex ecosystem. The IT integration level is shifting from stand-alone applications that target single process operators to systems of systems that target complex business ecosystems in which many different stakeholders are involved. From a funding perspective, the challenge is to bring together the private and public sector to reap the benefits of both and make optimal use of the totally available innovation capital: the public sector benefitting from technological advancements in the private sector and the pe sector benefitting from the research expertise often found within publicly funded projects.
A paradigm shift is needed involving multiple aspects such as collaboration, trust, inclusion around topics such as data sharing and new business models. A Responsible Research and Innovation approach, implemented in practice, can help to design better and more accepted digital solutions and improve uptake and should be based on:
This approach is embedded in SmartAgriHubs, leading to sustainable innovation ecosystems that will be better enabled to navigate towards sustainable food systems.