In the journey to make agriculture more sustainable, inclusive, and data-driven, the Farmtopia project is proud to present its first ten Practice Abstracts: short, practitioner-friendly reports that translate technical results into actionable knowledge for farmers, advisors, and other agricultural stakeholders. Developed in line with EU CAP Network guidelines for EIP-AGRI Project Database, they serve as a key tool to share insights, showcase tangible results, and highlight lessons learned across our Sustainable Innovation Pilots (SIPs).
This initial batch was carefully selected to reflect Farmtopia’s core objectives: democratizing access to Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs), applying innovative methodological approaches, and highlighting completed technical work, particularly the development of reusable software components and digital tools.
These abstracts address persistent on-farm challenges faced by small and medium-sized farmers and cooperatives across Europe, offering a look into replicable and accessible Agricultural Digital Solutions (ADSs), Innovative Methodological Approaches and Sustainable Collaborative Business Model Innovation being developed within the project. Here is what we have been working on:
By Dionysios Solomos, NEUROPUBLIC
Farmtopia introduces a farm-centric, bottom-up approach where farmers and tech providers co-create affordable, scalable ADSs tailored to real-world problems. Implemented through four phases – co-development, deployment, refinement, and scaling – this approach presents solutions that are easy to use, adaptable, interoperable, and more affordable, helping build farmers’ digital confidence and expanding the market for AgTech providers.
By Christopher Brewster, Green Supply Chain (GSC)
To enable seamless data exchange among diverse agricultural digital solutions, Farmtopia developed a Common Semantic Model (CSM). This standardized vocabulary, based on existing recognized standards and adhering to FAIR data principles, ensures that different ADS components understand and correctly interpret shared data.
By Tomaz Bokan, Miran Bunderla, and Natalija Rebrica, ITC Murska Sobota
The Farmtopia Digital Field Book, part of the Farm Management Information System (FMIS), simplifies data capture and management for small and medium farms. It helps track farm activities, observations, field properties, and asset management through an easy-to-use interface on computers or mobile devices.
The Digital Field Book consists of three key services:
- Field Book as a Servic
- Field Book Data Exchange API
- Field Book as Open-Source Software
By Nikos Kalatzis, Green Supply Chain
The Farmtopia Data Integration Module connects various data sources, from sensors to satellite imagery, providing weather forecasts, pest and disease alerts through a standardized API. This easy-to-install tool helps AgTech providers quickly build affordable digital solutions without starting from scratch. Future updates will add more data sources and advanced weather and satellite services.
By Odysseas Sekkas, NEUROPUBLIC
The Farmtopia Data Exchange Module offers a standardized, secure platform for peer-to-peer data sharing that ensures interoperability and aligns with EU data privacy standards. It empowers users to control their data and supports collaboration across different farm sizes and systems.
By Ioannis Seremetis & Sofia Mouseti, Agricultural University of Athens
Inspired by the French CUMA cooperative model, Farmtopia is developing an ADS Sharing Platform to enable farmers to collaboratively share both traditional machinery and cutting-edge digital technologies like drones, GPS-guided tractors, and sensors.
The platform offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model for cooperatives and communities to customize resource sharing. It also features a Knowledge Base with decision-support tools, tutorials, and best practices to help farmers improve productivity and sustainability.
By Federica Ciccullo, Ernst Johannes Prosman, Sandra Cesari de Maria, Filippo Renga & Raffaella Cagliano, Politecnico di Milano ( POLIMI )
Farmtopia’s Sustainable Collaborative Business Models (SCBM) promote collaboration among farmers, tech providers, and stakeholders to co-create value and overcome these barriers. The SCBM approach involves three phases:
- Development: Creating flexible, user-friendly ADSs.
- Adoption: Building trust through ambassador farmers, workshops, and communication campaigns.
- Consolidation: Reducing financial risk with flexible pricing models.
By Dionysios Solomos, NEUROPUBLIC
Farmtopia SIP1 partnered with 7 smallholder farmers in Chania, Greece to deploy the “gaiasense” Smart Farming solution aimed at reducing water and fertilizer use. The system uses data from sensors, farm observations, and satellite imagery to provide tailored recommendations. Seven IoT stations capture diverse local conditions, while iterative farmer feedback helped refine irrigation and fertilization models. The solution integrates Farmtopia’s Data Exchange module for secure data sharing within cooperatives.
By Dimitrios Argyropoulos, University College Dublin
Farmtopia’s Smart Mushroom Farming tool offers a real-time, automated monitoring system that helps farmers track crop growth, predict yields, and receive alerts when environmental factors require action. The tool supports more accurate harvesting schedules, better climate control, and efficient resource use.
By Camille Harel, ARVALIS – Technical Institute
Farmtopia uses a multi-criteria assessment framework (e.g., the Systerre® tool) to evaluate spot spraying based on technical, economic, and environmental indicators. This approach, tested in SIP8 on maize and wheat, helps farmers understand the real-world value of adopting precision technologies.
Conclusion
In addition to the Newsroom, all practice abstracts are available on two key European knowledge-sharing platforms:
- EU CAP Network: a platform that connects stakeholders engaged in implementing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, and
- EU FarmBook, a collaborative digital repository for agricultural knowledge and innovation.
These platforms ensure that Farmtopia’s results are accessible to farmers, advisors, researchers, and policymakers across Europe, amplifying impact and fostering cross-sector knowledge exchange.
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