ABS Veggie
Countries Involved: Serbia
Partners and Farms involved:
-
- Agro Budžet Sistem (ABS) – SIP leader, ADS provider
- Poljoprivredno gazdinstvo “Svetislav Pačarić” (PGSP) – Farm partner; pilot testing on parcels cultivating old cabbage and onion varieties in Vojvodina, Serbia.
The Need for Climate-Resilient Farming
Farming in Vojvodina, Serbia, faces climate variability, with prolonged droughts and irregular precipitation creating instability. Transitioning to climate-resilient, drought-tolerant crops offers a pathway forward, but farmers encounter persistent barriers: knowledge and resource gaps, unpredictable investment outcomes, limited market access, and a digital divide.
How Will ABS Veggie Address the Challenge?
ABS Veggie is a farmer-centric Agricultural Digital Solution (ADS) developed for small-scale vegetable producers, particularly those cultivating old and biodiversity-friendly varieties such as cabbage and onion. The platform supports farmers facing climate stress, irrigation challenges, and production uncertainties by offering data-driven, field-specific insights. The upgraded solution combines remote sensing, drone data, and farm-level activity monitoring through three interconnected modules:
–Production Module for Old Vegetable Varieties: Provides localized, variety-specific recommendations by integrating EO data (e.g., Sentinel), climate information, and regional gene bank datasets to support decision-making throughout the growing season.
-Supplier – Farmer Network Module: Facilitates improved communication and transparency between farmers and input suppliers by enabling tailored input offers, based on anonymized production plans and farmer demand.
–Farmtopia Digital Field Book Module: Integrated via API, this module allows standardised logging of field operations, ensuring traceability, compliance, and alignment with sustainability standards (e.g., eco-schemes).
The Business and Governance Model to be followed: The ABS Veggie will co-create, test, and validate the platform on cabbage and onion parcels, built on existing ABS platform (TRL6) aiming for TRL8, with expected outcomes of +25% productivity, ≥15% water savings, improved market access, and stronger farmer engagement. The platform delivers value by offering tailored decision-support tools, reducing financial risks, and ensuring traceability and sustainability compliance, fostering sustainability, resilience, and economic potential for smallholder farms.