Over the past decade, digital technologies have generated significant enthusiasm and investment aimed at improving the economic and environmental performance of the agricultural sector. Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs) leverage advanced data-driven technologies to make farming more precise, controlled and efficient. Despite significant investments, however, the adoption rate among small and medium-sized farms remains quite low, falling below sectoral expectations. These farms face multiple challenges such as high upfront costs, uncertain benefits, solutions incompatible with their needs, lack of digital skills, and low trust in commercial vendors. Experience has shown that a simple “technology push” is not enough to overcome resistance to change and drive widespread adoption. True progress requires solutions that address real-world problems and are combined with appropriate shifts in mindsets and business models. Farmtopia seeks to reverse this trend through a pioneering, synergetic farmer-driven approach that fosters the creation of cost-effective ADS tailored to the distinctive needs of small-scale farms. By engaging both farmers and ADS providers in the deployment process and introducing innovative business models, Farmtopia substantially lowers costs for both parties, rendering ADSs adoption affordable and sustainable. The overall objective of Farmtopia is to advance digitalization and democratize digital farming by creating a paradigm shift in the way ADSs for small and medium sized farms are created, deployed and financed. This will be achieved by a) fostering co-creation of ADSs to ensure they will solve real problems and fit the needs of small farms; and b) lowering the cost for both farmers and ADSs providers, by creating a set of reusable software modules, a number of business and governance models, and identifying public provision of infrastructure that can enable scale-out of ADSs. Using a multi-actor approach, Farmtopia will engage farmers, ADSs providers, and AKIS actors in 18 Sustainable Innovation Pilots (SIPs), focusing on crops and livestock where ADS availability is currently insufficient, as well as on crops of regional importance.
