Meeting the European Union's digital agriculture requirements

"Meeting the European Union's Digital Agriculture Requirements” is a compendium that has been jointly produced by the FAO and ITU to help pre-accession countries and territories understand and meet the emerging EU requirements related to digital agriculture. The compendium emphasizes the importance of digital agriculture for achieving sustainable development and details the steps necessary for integration with the EU digitalization into framework. The main highlights of the compendium include: 1) an overview of why digital agriculture is becoming increasingly instrumental for the achievement of the EU’s sustainability objectives, affecting also pre-accession countries and territories; 2) a detailed examination of emerging EU requirements and opportunities for digital agriculture, with specific focus on the Common Agricultural Policy; 3) guidance on EU pre-accession funding, instruments and delivery mechanisms for digital agriculture; and 4) voluntary checklists to guide the self-assessment of pre-accession countries and territories around EU’s digital agriculture requirements and opportunities.

• Big data
• Cloud
• Desktop/web-based application
• E-payment
• GIS
• Remote sensing
• Website

The compendium provides an overview of the EU requirements related to digital agriculture, from statistics to agricultural policies. The compendium dives into two main agricultural policy areas: 1) electronic information systems for CAP management, monitoring and evaluation; and 2) CAP strategies and interventions related to the digitalization of agriculture. For the first area, the compendium reports on the main electronic information systems required by the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, namely GIS, databases, portals, websites, cloud systems, remote sensing (primarily satellites, but more recently also unmanned vehicles), and web-based applications that reduce the administrative burden on beneficiaries. Included among the databases are an identification system for agricultural parcels; a system for the identification of beneficiaries, agricultural market information systems, etc. For the second area, rather than outlining the specific digital technologies in use, the compendium reports on interventions supported by the Common Agricultural Policy, including: 1) cooperation (e.g. Smart Villages); 2) investments; 3) training and capacity building; and 4) direct payment to eco-schemes based on smart farming technologies.

• Academia and research institutions
• Agriculture cooperatives
• Civil society organizations
• Farm advisors
• Food consumers
• Large size farms
• Medium size farms
• Smallholder farmers
• Public sector
• Private sector
• Rural communities

The compendium has been designed to aid countries and territories at different stages of the EU pre-accession process, from recognition as an official candidate through to the launch and completion of formal membership negotiations. The compendium also serves as a source of information for authorities, practitioners, experts and communities with an interest in digital agricultural policy and governance beyond Europe, and all over the world.

Understanding the latest developments and regulations related to digital agriculture in the European Union is becoming more challenging due to the continuous evolution and deployment of digital technologies, and the growing interrelationship between digitalization and agriculture across the whole EU Acquis. For the countries and territories whose negotiations ahead of accession to the European Union are continuing, this represents an additional undertaking, as they are being called on to meet these requirements, or indeed, go beyond them. Addressing this issue, the compendium has been designed to be a source of information for all pre-accession countries and territories, regardless of the timescale of their individual path to EU accession.