Digitech Value Chain

The “Digitech Value Chain inspiration framework for Agrofood, Forestry and Environment” identify the main transnational challenges and the technological trend affecting the Agrofood, Forestry and Environment value chains. These challenges will set the boundaries for the presentation of potential ICT-based solutions that can have a positive effect on the sectors under assessment.

The “Digitech value chain inspiration framework” allows ICT SMEs to identify agri-food market opportunities.

Value chain

Production

Production

– Agro inputs: seeds, fertilizers
– Tillage operations
– Harvesting/ threshing

Farmers and Cooperatives

Processing

Processing

– Drying, milling, pressing, or cooling
– Food processing

Processing companies, agri-food industry

Packaging

Packaging

– Packaging and Storing
– Warehouse

Storage and handling companies

Distribution and Selling

Distribution and Selling

– Infrastructure and transport
– Training
– Selling, Market strategy

Outbound Logistics

Retail

Retail

– Supermarket
– Hypermarkets
– Corner shops
– Markets
– Restaurants

Retailers

Consumers

Consumers

– Final customer
– Consumer
– User
Consumers

Technologies

Data analytics is a combination of different methods that are meant to create new information and models from collected data. Data analytics together with both data processing and visualization has been a rapidly growing trend as it allows companies and their employees to conduct solutions that create a competitive edge from their data sources without a need of any significant coding skills or vast resources.

Adoption Considerations:
The data sources are diverse and pre-processing must be done in order to have the data in the right format depending on the tasks under study. This relates to standardization and novel interoperability mechanisms for sharing data from multi-sources.
Blockchain takes in Big Data is more secure, as the data cannot be forged or falsified. In the agriculture domain, smart contracts together with automated payments; agricultural insurance, green bonds, and traceability could be the game-changer.

The recent focus of the agri-robotics community has been to identify applications where the automation of repetitive tasks is more efficient or effective than a traditional human or large machine approach. One advantage of modern robotics is their ability to be built using low-cost, lightweight and smart components. Due to their prevalence in consumer electronics, such as mobile phones, gaming consoles and mobile computing, high quality cameras and embedded processors can be built in to many platforms at very low cost.

Adoption Considerations:
A robot can use 90% less herbicide, making it 30% cheaper than traditional treatments. A fleet of these robots could easily replace human farm labor down the ro