Testing and Experimentation Facility for Agri-Food

Outcomes and deliverables

Expected outcomes would include increased higher agri-food sector resilience, mitigation of the environmental impact of agricultural activity to soil, water and biodiversity, greater resource and cost efficiency and competitiveness in agricultural production, helping to optimise the use of natural resources for instance through supporting a decrease in input and the impact of the use of e.g. water, fertilizer or pesticides to the environment. Depending on the final scope of the project, it may contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation of the sector as well as to increased food and nutrition security and/ or optimised application of the approaches of the circular economy.

On the technological solutions side outcomes include reaching long time robotics autonomy levels at a faster pace, boosting the adaption of digital technologies in agriculture, increasing awareness of new digital farming technologies, validation in real conditions of next-generation AI-powered agricultural robotics and AI-based decision-making tools and enabling large-scale data collections. The AI solutions developed should also aim to be tailored to the needs of and affordable for smaller farms^[1].

The selected project will develop and, if necessary, adapt over time, a long-term plan over 60+ months 1) to build up or upgrade facilities with resources and services, 2) offer and extend the use of facilities to promising future AI and robotics solutions providers, and 3) to achieve long-term financial sustainability after EU funding stops.

Contribution to AI innovation:

• Boosting the competitiveness of the European industry, including SMEs in AI, a technology of high strategic relevance;
• Contributing to boost European IP and products based on European technology;
• Creation of world-class experimentation facilities in Europe, offering a comprehensive support combining the necessary expertise, meeting the needs of European innovators. The organisations running the TEFs and their process will ensure the highest level of trust and security for the users of the TEFs, and the highest quality of the testing and validation to guarantee trust and security in the tested solutions, key for their broad diffusion
• Contributing to European technology sovereignty and open strategic autonomy in AI, and AI-enabled solutions;

The principal objective of this measure is to further the development of the agri-food sector by enabling the full benefit of the digital transformation with AI and AI-powered robotics technologies and the move to a Circular Economy for a more sustainable, affordable, efficient and competitive production under high standards.

The selected project will develop reference testing and experimentation facilities with a focus on full integration, testing, validation, demonstration, and where appropriate certification, of advanced AI-based and AI-powered robotics technologies for the agri-food sector. Fields of applications may include, for instance, precision farming solutions, but also other applications from mid- and down-stream such as food processing, wholesale, retail, hospitality and food services. The project may cover the whole value chain of the agri-food sector, but should only cover at least agriculture. Where appropriate demonstration can be done in connection with a specialised demonstration facility, several sub-sector and production types can be considered as well as various variables as it regards crop-livestock types/soils/climatic and environmental conditions/farm structure. The facilities may include a range of use cases in different fields such as – but not limited to - precision weeding/fertilisation/seeding, sensor data management, multifunctional autonomous robotics applications (and its long-time continuous use), and/or in different sub-sectors, such as arable farming, greenhouses, livestock/chicken management. Use cases may also be developed along different topics, such as collaborative robotics, circular economy or reduced food loss/waste. The use-cases offered should be end-user driven. This will be ensured by closely involving the end-users, e.g. farmers. Smaller farms^[2] and businesses should be involved in particular to ensure affordability of AI solutions. The project may conduct an analysis of bottlenecks and drivers of uptake of AI-based solutions by end users for its specific use cases, if appropriate in combination with the European Digital Innovation Hubs.

The infrastructure established within this activity will set-up or build on physical and digital resources, which will be available to the facilities users for the testing and experimentation of their hardware and software solutions. These physical and digital resources include high-power-computing, labs, cloud computing, connectivity technologies such as 5G, trusted and secured access to sets of (labelled) high quality data, and AI toolkit solutions. Professional services support in areas such as business, compliance and verification/certification, including for a possible requirement from the future regulatory framework for AI, is also provided directly or via the EDIHs. Regulatory sandboxes may be provided where relevant. The facilities are linked to relevant Digital Europe Programme projects such as other Testing and Experimentation Facilities, EDIHs and data-spaces, especially for agriculture. Facilities are also encouraged to establish links to relevant projects funded by Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe, whenever feasible and meaningful. Supported activities will also cover validation and demonstration in real application environment, prototyping, pilot manufacturing, business development, standardization, certification, ethics, cybersecurity and data protection where relevant.

The work of the TEF for the agri-food sector will follow the approach to bring AI and AI-powered robotics technology from the lab to the market, described in the European Commission’s Communication Coordinated Plan on AI with the Member States, as well as with the declaration “a smart and sustainable digital future for European agriculture and rural areas”, signed on 9th of April 2019.

[1] Small refers to the economical and physical size of farms.

[2] Small both in physical and economical size.