Time passes and we are nearing the end of the second ICT-AGRI iteration. On 31 December 2018, ICT-AGRI-2 will end after five productive years of funding projects and mapping/shaping the European research and innovation landscape within ICT and robotics in agriculture.

ICT-AGRI is a network of 23 partners from ministries, agencies and research institutes from 16 countries. Focus is digital agriculture. Since its beginning in 2009 new technologies have been spread rapidly in farming and these technologies will further revolutionize the agri-food sector in the next decade. From its beginning in 2009 until today ICT-AGRI has launched six calls focusing on different solution domains within digital agriculture. To further strengthen the European Research Area in digital agriculture ICT-AGRI has developed and been involved in a great diversity of activities ranging from mapping, strategy development, stakeholder engagement, dissemination of project outputs and knowledge brokerage.

Probably no other innovation in the agri-food sector is spreading as massively as digitization just now. Digitization will change our entire business life, but also social relations. Therefore I am very pleased that these challenges are recognized by the Commission and European Governments. In the next H2020 Work Programme for 2019, a topic for a new ERA-NET Cofund has been included. The new ERA-NET will focus on the whole food system from farm to fork. The process preparing a proposal before the deadline 23 January 2019 has started and we expect that the ERA-NET will start mid-2019. Among its first activities there will be a co-funded call.

In this newsletter you can read about some of recent activities we have been working with in ICT-AGRI.