S3P T&BD
Several authors, members of the European project DIVA (Innosup 01) and coordinated by CTA, have recently published a paper called “DIVA Project: Digitalization of agri-food, forestry and environmental sectors” in the scientist journal “Open Access Government”. This paper offers an excellent view of project’s work and contributions to the digitalization of the agrifood, forestry and environmental sectors, specifically, it analyses the transnational challenges and opportunities in the digitization of the aforementioned sectors, and offers a series of recommendations, aimed at SMEs and public administrations to accelerate the process.
As main outcomes, we highlight:
- Two open calls launched (February 2019 and February 2020) at the European level. As a whole, more than 400 proposals were received. 134 projects involving 180 SMEs from 9 different EU countries were selected: 88 maturation projects, 38 demonstration projects and 8 internationalization projects, which represents a 35% average success rate. The beneficiaries benefited from direct financial support in the form of vouchers worth 10 to 60 k€ depending on the type of project.
- The thematic of the 134 selected projects were analysed and classified according to the three main following drivers: the step of the value chain addressed by the project, the relative novelty of the solution and the digital technology.
The majority (63%) of the selected projects concerned the first step of the value chain, with the development of solutions for “sustainable production”, mainly focused on crop “monitoring and planning”. Decision support tools for irrigation management, optimised application of phytosanitary products or fertilisers, the detection of diseases or anomalies at the farm level and weed detection were typical purposes of some of these solutions. While crop production remained the main focus, several projects concerned precision livestock farming, for “cattle monitoring and planning”. Other solutions regarding “phenotyping and genetic engineering” for crops or crops “traceability” have been funded.
- Projects have been classified in three categories, according to the relative novelty of their addressed solutions and application field. The following trends have been identified: incremental innovations, innovations in the wake of new trends and cutting-edge innovations.
- All the selected projects have been monitored by a DIVA national partner in charge. The monitoring procedure included an initial assessment, the definition of a roadmap and a final assessment, including quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the project impact. Finally, in the case of the maturation and demonstration projects, it was identified the most innovative and promising projects.
At the top of the ranking, the Consortium voted these 3 projects:
- Finally, DIVA identified a 10 points summary about recommendations for SMEs and EU policies.
The European project DIVA (Innosup 01) was to support the emergence of innovative digital solutions for the agri-food sector and the related ones forestry and environment, and promote the development of new industrial digitech value chains. Coordinated by the Cluster AGRI SUD-OUEST INNOVATION (France) in cooperation with nine other partners from 6 countries: Digital 113 (France), CTA and AMETIC (Spain), INESCTEC and TECLAB (Portugal), CRPV and H-FARM (Italy), GRNET (Greece) and TEAGASC (Ireland), the DIVA project has boosted during 3 years (2018-2021) the innovation ecosystems of these countries to instigate the emergence of innovative solutions brought by SMEs, accelerate the conception of disruptive cross-sectoral and cross-border projects, and support the development of new digitech value-chains. Its budget has been €2,7 million.
Read the full article here:
DIVA Project: Digitalization of agri-food, forestry and environmental sectors
DIVA final event held on March 4th 2021