Assessing the impact of digital technology solutions in agriculture in real-life conditions

The QuantiFarm project focusses on supporting the further deployment of digital technologies in agriculture (DATs) as key enablers for enhancing the sustainability (economic, environmental, social) performance and competitiveness of the agricultural sector. It will achieve this by establishing a framework for assessing the impact and effectiveness of DATs in agriculture and developing innovative tools, services and recommendations for farmers, advisors and policy makers. Following a multi-actor approach, QuantiFarm will build the project activities around 30 Test Cases (TCs) which span over 20 countries in 10 (of the 11) Biogeographical regions across Europe, capturing multiple geo-political and financial settings. All 30 TCs take place in commercial farms of different types, sizes, ownership and operating conditions from 7 agricultural sectors. Different aspects of these TCs will be examined in the context of different work packages (WPs). The TCs’ actors will be engaged in participatory observation activities to offer valuable input and actively support the behavioural analysis (WP1), the establishment of the Assessment Framework (WP2) and the co-design of an innovative Toolkit for farmers, advisors and policy makers (WP3). The lean multi-actor approach will be used in the testing activities to evaluate the QuantiFarm Toolkit and validate the Assessment Framework by testing the various DATs in real life conditions, across 3 iterations/growing seasons (WP4). The outcomes will be transformed into policy recommendations (WP5) and will feed the QuantiFarm DIA that will help build the capacities of farmers’ advisors in DATs. Finally, a WP on dissemination, ecosystem building and exploitation (WP6), will guarantee the wider dissemination and knowledge transfer in a multi-actor context of the outputs of the project. QuantiFarm includes 32 partners, 12 of them representing farmers and advisors.