Report on farmers' needs, innovative ideas and interests

Agricultural and rural regions in Europe face a number of economic (e.g. farm income), social (e.g. abandonment),
and environmental (e.g. soil degradation, biodiversity loss) challenges. Smart farming technologies (SFT) are one
option that may support farmers in overcoming these challenges. SFT include farm information management
systems, precision agriculture technologies, and agriculture automation and robotics. Given the development of SFT,
it is particularly interesting to explore how they play a role - or not - in supporting farmers’ and their farms. Therefore,
the goal of this study was to understand farmers’ technological needs and interests regarding farming and SFT
throughout the EU. We conducted surveys with farmers in France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Serbia, the Netherlands,
and the UK. Farmers were selected according to their cropping system (arable crops, open field vegetables, tree
fruits, and vineyards) and farm size class (<2, 2-10, 11-50, 51-100, 101-200, 201-500, >500 ha), for a total of 271
farmers. Surveys were conducted from the beginning of August to late November, and gathered information related
to perceptions of farming challenges, SFT potential, information sources for farmers, and adoption. A combination of
multiple choice questions, Likert-scale data, and open-ended questions provided insight to subjective perceptions of
SFT, how they may help overcome challenges in agriculture, information sources that are important for farmers, and
how some of the patterns differ between adopters and non-adopters. Summary statistics in the R environment were
used for analysis. While farmers’ perception of challenges in agriculture was shaped largely by country-specific
contexts, there was an overarching tendency amongst farmers to be uncertain about the ability of SFT to help
overcome those challenges. Interests and needs of farmers varied somewhat according to cropping system and farm
size, but there was little difference between adopters and non-adopters. Farmers across countries and cropping
systems indicate that they need more access to information about SFT, and that existing SFT is too costly and not
compatible enough with other machinery.