In November 2020, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Office for Europe and Regional Office for CIS, together with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, launched the regional contest on “Digital Excellence in Agriculture in Europe and Central Asia" to identify, showcase and celebrate good practices and innovative solutions that have proven successful in advancing the digital transformation of agriculture in the regions.
Within this context, ITU and FAO held the official Launching Event of the “ITU-FAO Stocktaking Report: Digital Excellence in Agriculture in Europe and Central Asia – Good practices in the field of Digital Agriculture" on 9 July 2021 from 10.00 to 10.45 CEST.
With nearly 200 applicants from 38 countries of Europe and Central Asia, the initiative revealed a diverse, dynamic and future-thinking ecosystem of innovators and problem-solvers. The Stocktaking report lists the 171 eligible practices part of the regional contest.
The event of 9 July was the opportunity to announce the names of the 28 practices selected to compete for the final part of the contest on Digital Excellence in Agriculture. These practices were identified as impactful, sustainable, up-scalable, innovative, using a combination of multiple technologies and able to enhance the digital transition of the agricultural sectors of Europe and Central Asia.
On top of the 21 outstanding practices (three per category), the members of the Evaluation Committee have decided to identify seven champion practices (one per category) coming from the 18 countries of the ITU-FAO review on the status of digital agriculture in Europe and Central Asia: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russian Federation, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The Awards Ceremony will be held virtually on 23 September 2021.
Read more about the ITU-FAO “Digital Excellence in Agriculture in Europe and Central Asia" regional contest
The following finalists were identified under each of the 7 categories:
Category 1: Regulatory frameworks / Enhanced market access / Financial services and insurance
- Local Food Nodes - Local Food Nodes Röstånga ek Förening;
- Mobile application “NMA agro" - National Paying Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania;
- Straight from the Farm - Fresh.Land;
- Integrated One Stop Shop for farmers to access finance, markets, inputs, and knowledge - Agrianalytica LLC.
Category 2: Capacity development and empowerment
- Organic Farm Knowledge - Online platform to promote knowledge exchange among organic farmers and advisors;
- Electronic agricultural maps - Agro InformAsia;
- FarmForesight - FarmForesight;
- Genpro - Ruralbit Lda.
Category 3: Agriculture innovations systems and sustainable farming - Farm automation, robots, drones
- Bakus, full electric and autonomous vineyards robot - VitiBot;
- High-Precision Weed Control in Organic Farming - West Coast University of Applied Science;
- Biological protection of plants by entomophages using unmanned aerial vehicles - LLC "Fly and See Agro;
- Intelligent watering taking advantage of the existing irrigation installation - BRIOAGRO TECH.
Category 4: Agriculture innovations systems and sustainable farming - Specific solutions
- Apiary Book Restored application! - Apiary Book Ltd.;
- i-bee - IT INNOVATIONS;
- Nedap CowControl - Nedap Livestock Management;
- Hive-Tech - 3Bee Srl.
Category 5: Agriculture innovations systems and sustainable farming - Connected farm management systems
- Agricolus platform - Agricolus s.r.l.;
- xFarm - xFarm;
- AGRIVI Farm Management Software - AGRIVI d.o.o.;
- The AI-powered OneSoil platform for precision farming that is free for farmers to use - OneSoil.
Category 6: Disaster risk management and early warning systems
- agroNET – digital platform for sustainable farming Restored application! - DunavNET;
- VIPS - NIBIO;
- Sencrop: Precision ag-weather solutions - Sencrop;
- Disease and Pest Forecast with Artificial Intelligence - Pessl Instruments GmbH.
Category 7: Food loss and waste / Food safety and traceability
- Farmer Expert - Farmer Expert;
- OLIO - OLIO Exchange Limited;
- BIOsens Myco - BIOsens;
- Real-time digital food supply chain auditing, powered by blockchain Restored application! - Connecting Food.
