The SF Revolution - Challenges & Opportunities for BSB countries

1. Business Agency
Association
BSB908 SMART FARMING
The Smart Farming Revolution -
challenges & opportunities for
BSB countries
12.11.2021 Silvia Stumpf

2. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
Digitalisation in the agro-industry
On the whole, digitalisation has been a high
priority for the EU.
Well reflected from the main Commission’s
policy stances, such as the headline ambition
“A Europe fit for the digital age”.
As far as the agricultural sector is concerned,
digitalisation plays an indispensable role in
achieving the objectives of the EU Green Deal
and the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F).
92,328
(2018)
(2017)

3. The objectives put forward in these two pivotal strategic
documents:
- sustainability ambitions,
- the necessity to reinforce food security and
- strengthen Europe’s competitiveness on the global stage
Two particular challenges ahead:
-sustainability and biodiversity protection - core of the EU action.
-considerable efforts into reducing emissions in the agricultural
sector by promoting organic products and by reducing the use
of fertilisers and pesticides are already put in place.
The overall challenge is to maintain the coherence between
different policy objectives, such as, for example, coupling
sustainability and farmers’ profitable business models.
COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
Farm to Fork

4. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
The digital transformation of
agriculture will facilitate
cooperation across the value
chain, support farmers, and offer
opportunities for innovative SMEs.
An example of a Digital Twin used
to assess livestock.

5. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
Technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of
Things (IoT), Edge Computing, 5G, blockchain and supercomputing, all
have the potential to make agriculture more efficient, sustainable, and
competitive.
Nevertheless, as in other sectors and society as a whole, the digital
transformation of agriculture poses the risk of a digital divide. For
example, between connected and disconnected farms and
economically small and large farms.
The risk of a digital divide

6. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS

7. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
IoT sensors collect environmental and machine
data, which can be exploited by farmers to make
better decisions, as well as help them to improve
every aspect of their work, such as crop farming and
livestock monitoring. When combining IoT real-time
data with accurate geo-spatial data, then one can
speak of truly enabling precision farming.
Which applications is IoT used in?

8. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS

9. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
Increased economic and environmental
performance, allowing farmers to thrive.
Environmental sustainability, helping agriculture
to become greener.
Competitiveness of the EU digital supply industry.
Improved working conditions of the farmers.
An increase in transparency along the supply
chain.
The digital transformation of agriculture will enable:
Benefits and challenges
ahead
BENEFITS CHALLENGES
Farmers can face various uncertainties linked to
weather, price and income volatility. Many
agricultural workers only work part-time or are self-
employed, and the ecosystem relies on temporary
contracts for seasonal workers. The industry faces
challenges linked to an ageing workforce and
attracting staff with high-level skills. This is where
the use of digital technologies can help.
But there are limiting factors:

10. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
Connectivity issues
Lack of basic infrastructure in many parts of
the area is a major obstacle to digital
farming
Benefits awareness
System interoperability
Farmers’ skills
Benefit-cost ratio
Reluctance to share data
Limiting factors
HOWEVER, THERE ARE
A LOT OF
OPPORTUNITIES THAT
CAN OVERTHROW
THOSE CHALLENGES

11. FARM MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS & APP
PROVIDERS
B2B ECOSYSTEMS
PROVIDERS
NATIONAL/REGIONAL
DATA HUBS
OPPORTUNITIES
Provided by machinery
suppliers, input providers
(seeds, fertilisers...)
COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
HIGH-VALUE DATA SETS
FROM PUBLIC SECTOR
Collaboration between
several vendors enabling
data sharing.
Data space resulting from
Public - Private
Partnerships supporting
eco-systems
Examples: Geo-spatial
data, soil and
environmental data

12. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
On the one hand, the goals of the EU F2F Strategy, coherently with the EU Green Deal and the Biodiversity Strategy, are to
reduce the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers in agriculture; on the other hand, this process might imply reduce food
production and, therefore, a more precarious food security setting. Same process is deployed in BSB area.
This process could also signify a loss of income for farmers in the short and medium term which has already been
decreasing over the past years.
Main challenges for BSB area
The future of the agricultural sector will be reliant upon the choices of the EU and
other countries to operate this delicate transformation. Investments will be crucial
for the development of smart farming. The importance of investing in new
technologies and the necessity of stimulating innovation among farmers is stronger
than ever. It could be a risk in the future if policies in the area fail to incentivise
investments and innovation, therefore our project aims at mobilising
stakeholders to shape up Roadmaps for smart farming.

13. COMMON BORDERS COMMON SOLUTIONS
www.vba.bg
business.agency.bg
business.agency.association
www.bsb-smartfarming.com
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