Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CODECS (Maximising the CO-benefits of agricultural Digitalisation through conducive digital ECoSystems)
Période du rapport: 2022-10-01 au 2024-03-31
CODECS intends to develop user-friendly approaches, methods, and tools able to document the co-benefits and the costs of technologies applied to real contexts of food production chains.
To achieve this aim, the project implies cooperative co-creation processes involving farmers and actors of the Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems defined in the Common Agricultural Policy of EU (AKIS) to support innovation and exchanging knowledge between advisors, farmers and foresters, researchers, rural networks, national and regional authorities, media, all people involved in education and training, consumers.
Therefore, CODECS will improve the collective capacity to understand, assess and foresee the full range of costs and benefits (C&B) of farm digitalisation, to create “digital ecosystems” maximising the net benefits of digitalisation, thus developing a vision of “sustainable digitalisation” able to contribute to a multi-level transition linking social, economic, and ecological aspects together, by adopting an innovative system based/actor centred approach, and an action research methodology based on 20 Living Labs (LLs) coordinated by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams. The research will:
- study the role of these “digital ecosystems” in the rate of uptake of digital technologies and in the distribution of their C&B;
- develop and test 3 indicators (farmers' digital readiness, scaling readiness, digital ecosystem conduciveness) to monitor the level of digitalisation and foresee its potential C&B;
- assess and compare the full range of social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits of farm digitalisation, identifying synergies and trade-offs between different sources of C&B;
- test and demonstrate digital technologies in the LLs through physical and virtual demonstration.
A CODECS platform will be put in place to host search, demonstration, and assessment tools.
CODECS has a strong commitment to get an impact in the AKIS domain and in the policy field, which will be put into practice through a dedicated work package on policy analysis and policy tools, a set of policy briefs and webinars and an engagement strategy at local, national, European level through LLs, a science-policy interface, an AKIS network and a demo-farm network.
To achieve this aim, the project implies cooperative co-creation processes involving farmers and actors of the Agriculture Knowledge and Innovation Systems defined in the Common Agricultural Policy of EU (AKIS) to support innovation and exchanging knowledge between advisors, farmers and foresters, researchers, rural networks, national and regional authorities, media, all people involved in education and training, consumers.
Therefore, CODECS will improve the collective capacity to understand, assess and foresee the full range of costs and benefits (C&B) of farm digitalisation, to create “digital ecosystems” maximising the net benefits of digitalisation, thus developing a vision of “sustainable digitalisation” able to contribute to a multi-level transition linking social, economic, and ecological aspects together, by adopting an innovative system based/actor centred approach, and an action research methodology based on 20 Living Labs (LLs) coordinated by interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams. The research will:
- study the role of these “digital ecosystems” in the rate of uptake of digital technologies and in the distribution of their C&B;
- develop and test 3 indicators (farmers' digital readiness, scaling readiness, digital ecosystem conduciveness) to monitor the level of digitalisation and foresee its potential C&B;
- assess and compare the full range of social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits of farm digitalisation, identifying synergies and trade-offs between different sources of C&B;
- test and demonstrate digital technologies in the LLs through physical and virtual demonstration.
A CODECS platform will be put in place to host search, demonstration, and assessment tools.
CODECS has a strong commitment to get an impact in the AKIS domain and in the policy field, which will be put into practice through a dedicated work package on policy analysis and policy tools, a set of policy briefs and webinars and an engagement strategy at local, national, European level through LLs, a science-policy interface, an AKIS network and a demo-farm network.
In its first 18 months, it developed an online living document based on co-creation activities within the partnership and its LLs. It established a common set of concepts, values, and assumptions to pursue coherence among the project methodologies, activities and analysis; moreover, it provided a theory of change linking the LLs analyses of adoption of digital technologies at farm level.
Thanks to workshops, the LLs:
- collected the perceptions of the participating stakeholders on costs and benefits of digital agriculture through ad hoc Focus Groups;
- started assessing C&B of digitalisation in agriculture, in the dimensions of Environmental assessment, Economic C&B and social impacts of the use of digital technologies at farm level.
Methodologies to carry out the workshop were defined and training sessions for LLs coordinators were dedicated to preparing data collection on those events. During a General Assembly on December 2023 a participatory activity allowed to classify the LLs according to their level of digitalisation and to select a pilot group for in-depths C&B analysis.
Methodologies were defined and training workshops for LLs were organised also to start implementing the project Demonstrations activities in Demo Farms through Demo events (Digital tools are expected to be demonstrated in demo-farms under real and contextualised conditions). Two of these events took already place: an international cross-visit in Almeria Agroecology LL (Spain) during the General Assembly On-Farm Demonstration in Occitanum Open Lab Sheep LL (France).
A first analysis of policy environments in the EU showed that specific and tailor-made policies can play a crucial role in (agriculture) digitalisation, that farmers’ skills and competencies are a crucial challenge while at the same time agriculture digitalisation is affected by different divides. AKIS, agricultural administrations and farming advisors need to upskill and reskill their competencies to give answers to the new needs.
The first release of the CODECS Digital Platform was delivered in September 2023: it features a meta-inventory of digital technologies tailored to specific use cases (Application Scenarios) and user needs in a user-friendly and intuitive interface.
Thanks to workshops, the LLs:
- collected the perceptions of the participating stakeholders on costs and benefits of digital agriculture through ad hoc Focus Groups;
- started assessing C&B of digitalisation in agriculture, in the dimensions of Environmental assessment, Economic C&B and social impacts of the use of digital technologies at farm level.
Methodologies to carry out the workshop were defined and training sessions for LLs coordinators were dedicated to preparing data collection on those events. During a General Assembly on December 2023 a participatory activity allowed to classify the LLs according to their level of digitalisation and to select a pilot group for in-depths C&B analysis.
Methodologies were defined and training workshops for LLs were organised also to start implementing the project Demonstrations activities in Demo Farms through Demo events (Digital tools are expected to be demonstrated in demo-farms under real and contextualised conditions). Two of these events took already place: an international cross-visit in Almeria Agroecology LL (Spain) during the General Assembly On-Farm Demonstration in Occitanum Open Lab Sheep LL (France).
A first analysis of policy environments in the EU showed that specific and tailor-made policies can play a crucial role in (agriculture) digitalisation, that farmers’ skills and competencies are a crucial challenge while at the same time agriculture digitalisation is affected by different divides. AKIS, agricultural administrations and farming advisors need to upskill and reskill their competencies to give answers to the new needs.
The first release of the CODECS Digital Platform was delivered in September 2023: it features a meta-inventory of digital technologies tailored to specific use cases (Application Scenarios) and user needs in a user-friendly and intuitive interface.
The most important achievement in the first Review Period has been the CODECS Conceptual Framework, that provides the conceptual resource for the development of the methodology and for the identification of main messages. Based on a broad literature review and participatory theory building, it identifies three systemic levels wherein digitalisation occurs:
a) business processes;
b) digital ecosystems;
c) socio-ecological systems.
The Business process is the level where the digital technology is introduced, the Digital Ecosystem is the level that allows the digital technology to work in a given context, and the Socio-Ecological System is the level that sets the rules for the uptake of digital technologies and where the societal impact occurs.
The conceptual framework shows the link between the three levels, preparing the ground for the analysis of costs and benefits. According to the framework, costs and benefits are generated primarily at business process level, and are affected by the characteristics of the digital ecosystem. Business processes affect activities at the level of socio-ecological systems, as they generate pressures on natural resources and release outputs in the environment.
a) business processes;
b) digital ecosystems;
c) socio-ecological systems.
The Business process is the level where the digital technology is introduced, the Digital Ecosystem is the level that allows the digital technology to work in a given context, and the Socio-Ecological System is the level that sets the rules for the uptake of digital technologies and where the societal impact occurs.
The conceptual framework shows the link between the three levels, preparing the ground for the analysis of costs and benefits. According to the framework, costs and benefits are generated primarily at business process level, and are affected by the characteristics of the digital ecosystem. Business processes affect activities at the level of socio-ecological systems, as they generate pressures on natural resources and release outputs in the environment.