Digital agriculture in Europe and in France: which organisations can boost adoption levels?
Véronique Bellon-Maurel
A B * , Isabelle Piot-Lepetit B C , Nina Lachia B D and Bruno Tisseyre B D
A Technologies & methods for the agricultures of tomorrow (ITAP), Université Montpellier, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), 361 rue Jean-Francois Breton, BP 5095, Montpellier 34196, France.
B Digital Agriculture Convergence Lab (#DigitAg), Montpellier, France.
C Montpellier Interdisciplinary Center on Sustainable AgriFood Systems – Social and Nutritional Sciences (MoISA), Université Montpellier, National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), 2 place Pierre Viala, Bât 26, Montpellier 34060, France.
D Technologies & methods for the agricultures of tomorrow (ITAP), Université Montpellier, L’Institut Agro, 2 place Pierre Viala, Bât 21, Montpellier 34060, France.
Crop & Pasture Science 74(6) 573-585 https://doi.org/10.1071/CP22065
Submitted: 7 March 2022 Accepted: 18 February 2023 Published: 28 March 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Rangeland Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
This paper presents the way the digital transformation of the agricultural sector is implemented in Europe and in France. It describes the main European and national strategies, the structure of research and innovation initiatives, and the investment in capacity building to foster innovation, adoption and use. More specifically, the French research and innovation ecosystem on digital agriculture is described. The actors involved come from different organisations, such as research and higher educational institutes, government agencies, agricultural technology (AgTech) companies, farmer unions etc., and work together by means of associations (e.g. Robagri), networks (e.g. RMT Naexus, DigiFermes, Fermes Leader), or living labs (e.g. Occitanum) on both digital technology assessment and co-design. Additionally, support is devoted to capacity building (e.g. Le Mas numérique, Mobilab) and a better understanding of the drivers of adoption and use of digital technologies (e.g. FrOCDA). Among these various organisations, #DigitAg, the Digital Agriculture Convergence Lab, has been created to foster interdisciplinary research on digital agriculture. All these initiatives aim to use digital technologies to support the European Green Deal, Farm-to-Fork and Biodiversity strategies as well as the French orientation towards more agroecological practices for safer and more sustainable food systems. Even though this organisational ecosystem is developing fast, the objective of encouraging the coevolution of both digital and green transformations is not without challenges that still need to be overcome, either through new research, innovations, initiatives or collaborations between the actors involved.
Keywords: #DigitAg, digital agriculture, digitalisation, Farm-to-Fork, green deal, innovation adoption, innovation ecosystems, innovation use.
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