As Farmtopia continues to move forward on its mission to support smallholder farmers through accessible and affordable digital solutions, the past period has brought significant advancements, events, and fresh developments across our Sustainable Innovation Pilots, software services, and collaborations.
Here is an overview of what has been happening recently within the project.
Farmtopia SIPs Open Days: Innovation in the Field
Over the last harvesting period, during spring and summer, Farmtopia’s core Sustainable Innovation Pilots (SIPs) opened their gates to farmers, advisors, and local stakeholders during pilot Open Days. A total of 10 events were held across multiple European countries, offering firsthand insights into how various Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs), co-developed and configured with small and medium-sized farmers, are being applied on the ground:
- Carrots in Italy
- Cereals & oilseeds in Slovenia
- Oyster mushrooms in Hungary 🇭🇺 and Ireland 🇮🇪
- Field and fodder crops, grapes via a digital platform in France 🇫🇷
- Arable crops (maize and wheat) in France 🇫🇷
- Dairy Cows in Romania
- Organic avocados in Greece 🇬🇷
- Hemp in Lithuania 🇱🇹
- Dairy sheep and goats in Belgium and France 🇧🇪🇫🇷
These events presented solutions such as IoT-based irrigation systems, AI-powered decision support tools, real-time animal welfare monitoring, and much more. Visiting farmers had the opportunity to observe real-life demonstrations, learn about the economic and environmental benefits, and exchange experiences directly with project partners.
You can have a look at all the videos from Farmtopia Sustainable Innovation Pilot (SIP) Open Days 2025, accessible on Farmtopia’s YouTube Page:
- Farmtopia Sustainable Innovation Pilot 1 Open Day, Greece, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0E8rLJb5kU&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwheBPt4Y5FZ9xi40V1-N7O6&index=4
- Farmtopia Sustainable Innovation Pilot 4 Open Day, Lithuania, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew9wB3-ViWw&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwheBPt4Y5FZ9xi40V1-N7O6&index=2
- Farmtopia Sustainable Innovation Pilot 5 Open Day, Slovenia, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvr8RM74-LU&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwheBPt4Y5FZ9xi40V1-N7O6&index=3
- Farmtopia Sustainable Innovation Pilot 8 Open Day, France, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89oPepLc1VM&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwheBPt4Y5FZ9xi40V1-N7O6&index=1
Advancing Farmtopia Services
Much of our recent work has focused on expanding and demonstrating the Farmtopia Reusable Software Components: modular solutions designed to help technology providers build and scale Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs), while ensuring that farmers receive tools truly tailored to their needs.
These services now come with documentation, open repositories, and demo videos to make them easier to explore and adopt.
- Farmtopia Data Exchange Module
A cloud-based mechanism for registering, discovering, and accessing agricultural data sources.
🎥 Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WgMGRIL3uo&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwiaYD2_IJsxRWVG_hhC3vTk&index=1
- Farmtopia Digital Field Book
A solution for small farms to capture activities, observations, parcels, and assets using standardised data models and APIs for easy reuse.
🎥 Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9R0b1D778U&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwiaYD2_IJsxRWVG_hhC3vTk&index=2
- Farmtopia Data Integration Service
A tool that brings together external data sources: weather, Earth Observation, and pest prediction, and integrates them into farming operations.
🎥 Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TgZm8XOv-A&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwiaYD2_IJsxRWVG_hhC3vTk&index=3
- ADS Sharing Platform
A digital matchmaking platform where farmers can share and access equipment and software tools, promoting more collaborative and affordable digital agriculture.
🎥 Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ealiBfBZ0hY&list=PLtvRz_ee7OwiaYD2_IJsxRWVG_hhC3vTk&index=4
Additional Tools Built on Farmtopia Services:
- Benchmarking Too: Helps aggregate input use and track agricultural and environmental performance, aligned with CAP indicator requirements.
- Early Warning Notification Servic: A DSS providing timely alerts related to pests, extreme weather conditions, and other on-farm risks by combining real-time observations, forecasts, and analytics.
👉 Explore these tools via Farmtopia GitLab and YouTube!
Farmtopia Welcomes New SIPs
Following Farmtopia’s Open Call, nine new SIPs officially kicked off their activities in July, introducing tailored digital solutions in sectors such as kiwi, almonds, viticulture, plums, cabbage, and more. Each pilot aims to boost sustainability, efficiency, and resilience in its local context, further expanding Farmtopia’s reach and impact.
Here are the newly selected SIPs:
Farmtopia Across Europe: Events & Visibility
Synergy Days 2025 – Rotterdam
Farmtopia participated together with more than 30 European initiatives working on agricultural digital innovation. Highlights included:
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A pitch presentation from our Project Coordinator, Dionysios Solomos, from Neuropublic
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A project booth where we showcased reusable software components, pilots, and results
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Participation in workshops on ethics in agricultural tech and open-source tools for smallholders
A warm thank you to SmartAgriHubs for gathering the community once again.
EKOAgrITech 2025
Our partner Beta Via presented Farmtopia at EKOAgrITech 2025, a forum and exhibition dedicated to innovations in organic farming, agri-tech, and research. Alongside other inspiring projects, Farmtopia was showcased as an example of how digital innovation can support more sustainable and inclusive farming. Demo video can be found here:
Méca-Culturales 2025, France
ARVALIS showcased the French case study from SIP8 at the first edition of Méca-Culturales in Saint-Agnet.
AGRA 2025 – Slovenia
At the International Fair of Agriculture and Food, DIH AGRIFOOD and ITC presented Farmtopia and demonstrated the Digital Field Book within SIP5
Farmtopia Featured in Media
Wim Govaerts & Co. presented Farmtopia in Geitenhouderij, a well-known magazine in the goat farming sector, available online for subscribers.
New Scientific Publication
We are pleased to highlight recent research outputs from University College Dublin (UCD) connected to SIP2 activities on organic oyster mushroom production:
- Instance segmentation of oyster mushroom datasets: A novel data sampling methodology for training and evaluation of deep learning models. – Journal article available at ScienceDirect
- Use of RGB-D camera images towards multiple object detection to support robotic mushroom harvesting. – Conference Paper presented at ECPA25:
All other scientific publications are listed on the Results page of our website. Have a look: https://farmtopia.eu/results/
Thank you for reading!
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