QuantiFarm will enable further deployment of digital agriculture technologυ solutions as key enablers for enhancing sustainability performance and competitiveness of the agricultural sector. To this end, QuantiFarm introduces a comprehensive Assessment Framework for independent qualitative and quantitative assessments of the multiple costs and benefits of digital agriculture technology solutions. We ensure replicability and uptake of digital technology solutions by deploying innovative tools, services, recommendations and making them relevant and of practical use to farmers, advisors, and policy makers across Europe.
Costs, benefits, sustainability gains will be assessed and demonstrated via 30 Test Cases under commercial conditions. Farms already using digital technologies will be compared to farms that are not. Key insights will be available to farmers, advisors, policy makers through the Digital Innovation academy, whereas the assessment results will be available through the QuantiFarm Toolkit.
QuantiFarm promotes digital agriculture approaches that are holistic, inclusive, and human-centered. Hence, we start with a robust behavioural analysis—to understand all the factors which affect farmers’ choices while exploring, selecting and implementing digital agriculture technology solutions. The methodology is built on learning directly from farmers in their own environments. Insights from the behavioral analysis—translated into a concrete view of key determinants of adoption and perception of technologies—will inform the QuantiFarm Toolkit that will ultimately support farmers’ decision making through tools like a criteria-based interactive recommender tool and a set of costs and benefits calculators.
QuantiFarm Digital Innovation Academy will offer a set of capacity building activities to advisors and other AKIS actors on the various types of digital technologies available, their costs, benefits and impact on sustainability. The Academy will also offer training sessions for advisors to help them make the most of the QuantiFarm Toolkit when selecting the suitable set of digital technologies for farmers they work with. The Toolkit will offer recommendations highlighting the conditions where the impact of technologies is high and should be prioritized.
QuantiFarm is a four-year project co-funded under Horizon Europe, the EU research and innovation programme. Led by GAIA EPICHEIREIN, the consortium is a diverse and dynamic network of partners, with expertise in behavioural interventions, capacity building and decision making support, policy recommendations, and sustainability-driven innovations and collaborative business and governance models.