Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) has been announced as the Ireland and UK coordinator for an EU-wide project for farmers and agricultural small enterprises (SMEs) starting in November.

The SmartAgriHubs project aims to build a pan-European network of digital innovation hubs (DIHs) and centres of competence in all 28 EU member states coordinated through nine regional clusters.

Farmers, groups of farmers or SMEs will be able to contact or visit the hub and say they have an idea or a problem that needs solving. The hub will then help to develop their ideas and put them in contact with groups, organisations or people who may be able to help and get involved. The main purpose of the project is to provide farmers with the means to further their ideas or find solutions to their problems.

The Ireland and UK cluster was launched at WIT on 9 July by EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan. This hub will be a one-stop-shop for two million farmers in the EU and the agri-food industry to access agri tech research and supports.

The project will begin at WIT on 1 November this year and will last for a total of four years. It will take a few months to grow the network, so farmers have some time to hone their ideas and think about what problems are affecting them.

It will be a new way for farmers, advisors and agri technology small enterprises (SMES) to engage with research centres and research-active higher-education institutions.

“One of the obstacles identified is that farmers and ICTs (information and communication technologies) are finding it difficult to access developing technology,” said industry services manager at WIT Brian Foley.

WIT’s role as regional coordinator will involve promoting and representing SmartAgriHubs in the regions and identifying relevant events and successful DIHs and experiments.

According to Foley, the impact of Brexit on the project hasn’t been confirmed but it will likely not affect this four-year project.

The €20m funding of the project will kickstart the programme over the four years, but it is hoped that the hub will become self-sustaining and carry on beyond that.

Technology

Foley said that agriculture was “a bit behind the curve” when it comes to technology, which is where SmartAgriHubs comes into play.

The project will address the issues of farmers and aims to develop access for farmers and agri people to technology that could be useful to them. “It is really about getting these technologies into the hands of farmers,” said Foley.

In all, 80 new solutions will be introduced into the market as part of the project and €6m has been set aside for open calls throughout the course of the project. Other ITs and companies will have the opportunity to get involved in the open calls.

The Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) research centre at WIT will be the central point of contact for farmers, advisors, agri-tech and agri-food companies that want to avail of technology solutions to farming and business problems from across Europe.

The first open call won’t take place until at least mid-2019, Foley estimates, but they will be widely publicised when they are scheduled.

Innovation Experiments

There are 28 flagship innovation experiments and 181 project partners across Europe. It is expected that the open call will fund 70 further experiments throughout the lifetime of the programme.

Teagasc will work with WIT to lead two of these experiments in the project that demonstrate how tech can be used effectively in farming. The first of these is focused on combining different data (such as water use and emissions) from various databases to help farmers become more sustainable. The second is a digital map of the different wildlife on farms, which will be useful for conservation purposes.

The four key tech research areas of the project are mobile platforms and services, data analytics and social computing, adaptive networks and services and augmented and virtual reality.

Horizon Europe

This project is run by a Dutch university and is a part of the Horizon 2020 programme that began in 2014 and will be followed on by the Horizon Europe programme in 2021.

Horizon 2020 had a budget of €80bn, and the new programme has a planned budget of €100bn, €10bn of which will be dedicated to use in the food and agricultural sectors.

President of WIT Willie Donnelly was involved in the application for the coordinator role and is excited for the project to begin. “This will be really big for Irish agriculture and Irish farmers. It is an ideal opportunity to support the creation of new SMEs at the open call,” said Donnelly.

“I see this as a blueprint for Europe going forward for investment in rural development.”

Contact

Links for further information and how to apply have not yet been released, but for more details contact Brian Foley at bfoley@wit.ie. CL