‘Farming 4.0 – moving towards connected & sustainable agriculture in Europe: What can digital technologies & advanced farm machines deliver?’ was the theme of this year’s summit of the European Agricultural Machinery Industry Association (CEMA) that took place in Brussels on 12 October 2017. Among the showcases was the Internet of Food & Farm 2020 (IoF2020) project, which aims to augment the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in the European food and farming chains.
The CEMA Summit 2017 represented a great opportunity to discuss the main trends in the field of smart machinery such as data collection and processing, interoperability of different devices, machines used in agriculture and the use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) in geo-spatial localization, amongst others. Panel discussions held during the summit followed-up on the latest trends related to the Internet of Things (IoT), debating the correlation of digital farming with the upcoming reform of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
The summit concluded that digital farming represents the way ahead: participants and panelists agreed that digital technologies can enhance the capabilities and productivity levels of European agriculture, thereby helping to face food security issues and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. In this way, the extended use of digital technologies can make European agriculture more sustainable and its end-products safer and healthier.
We were pleased to see that the conclusions drawn from the CEMA Summit 2017 are aligned with the objectives of the IoF2020 project towards a more sustainable and competitive European agriculture. Furthermore, we were glad to take part in the summit and provide to participants more information on what IoF2020 stands for, while offering them a copy of the IoF2020 booklet.
IoF2020 would like to thank CEMA for organizing such an informative event and for inviting us to present the IoF2020 project to the participants. We are looking forward to cooperating with the association in relation to the uptake of IoT technologies in the European food and farming chains in the years to come!
