Smart-AKIS is a Thematic Network on Smart Farming Technologies (SFT) that attempted to overpass the research and innovation divide in this area by the effective exchange between research, industry, extension and the farming community so that direct applicable research and commercial solutions are widely disseminated and grassroots level needs and innovative ideas are thoroughly captured. SFT has the potential to contribute to the wider goal of meeting the increasing demand for food, feed, and raw materials while ensuring the sustainability of primary production, based on a more precise and resource-efficient approach to agricultural production. Smart-AKIS addressed a timely and relevant topic to EU agriculture, since SFT is an area that develops very fast. There is a continuous offer of commercial farming technologies, many of which do not reach the practitioners, while research on SFT has also drastically increased over the past years.
The objectives of the project are:
1. To create an inventory of direct applicable SFT solutions by systematically reviewing research projects in the areas of precision farming, farm management information systems and agricultural automation and robotics.
2. To assess end-user needs and interests, and identify factors influencing adoption taking into account national specificities
3. To generate multi-actor, innovation-based collaborations among different stakeholders by developing interactive innovation processes in the national agricultural value chains, by bringing together farmers, advisors, researchers and industrial partners in interactive innovation workshops.
4. To develop an ICT tool, the “Smart Farming Platform”, for the on-line and interactive communication and knowledge exchange, the assessment of SFT solutions and the crowdsourcing of grassroots-level ideas and needs
5. Liaise with EIP-Agri and its structures in order to maximize stakeholder mobilization and enhance the impact of the project for closing the research and innovation divide in the area of SFT.
