A Panorama of Digitalization Tendencies in the European Agriculture Sector

. Digitalization in the agricultural sector is an imperative upgrade required to confront the predicted food security challenges announced by the United Nations and Food and Agriculture Organization. Smart agriculture goes beyond primary production (crop diseases, crop production), influencing the complete agricultural value chain, including sustainability and the environment. The present paper results were obtained through a well-documented literature review of European smart-farming projects and a quantitative analysis of the actual status of information, communication, and technology practices implemented among the member states. The research questions aimed to assess the European smart-farming projects' distribution among the agricultural value chain and to evaluate digitization's current status at the country-level among member states. At first glance, European Union has implemented over 30 projects with the primary scope to streamline the agricultural sector through massive investments in high-tech technology, autonomous robots, special workshops, and multiple training pieces for farmers and other parties involved along the value chain. The outcomes indicate that the European efforts were mainly orientated towards adding value to the "input-supply" stage. The following immediate focus was to support the entire agricultural supply chain. This article enriches the current literature through a unique combination of the European agricultural value chain and a structured review of the main digitalization projects implemented or which are under-implementation processes among the value chain.


Introduction
Digitalization is a driving force that has the power to transform agricultural production, food systems, and the entire agricultural value chain.
Considering the actual context and United Nations (UN) forecasts which predict that the world population is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050, there is an essential need to optimize the agricultural systems through fast-tracked technological investments. In such a scenario, according to the UN and Food and Agriculture (FAO), farmers ought to produce about 70% more foodproducts by 2050. This growth will require a transition from labor-intensive to smart agriculture, consisting of high-tech farm equipment, robotics, artificial intelligence, and big data.
Digital transformation is considered "the fourth industrial revolution". It can foster economic and social growth and equally protect the environment. According to McKinsey & Company (2020), digital technologies can contribute on average by 1.1% to annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the period 2017-2030. As a result of these technologies, the cumulative effect implies a 14.1% higher GDP by 2030 in the European Union (EU) 27 states.
This paper aims to evaluate the European agricultural value chain's digitalization situation by analyzing implemented or under implementation smart-farming projects. Moreover, the article pursues to assess how "prepared" are the European Union member states to adopt digitization in the agriculture sector, considering the Information, Communication and Technology Index.

Literature review
Digitalization is acknowledged as one of the most ubiquitous trends that will fundamentally transform our everyday lives (Yoo, 2010); (Leviäkangas, 2016). Digitalization is perceived as the future in the agriculture industry; digital technologies being the only way to increase business profitability. (Fuchs, 2019) Conversely, Pfeiffer et al., 2021 states that digitalization may also be sensed as a threat by the public.
The agricultural value chain (VC) is a complex chain that brings together actors and activities to create a farming product from zero-point production to the final consumption. The higher the number of the stage, the higher value is added to the product. Usually, the terms "value chain" and "supply chain" are used interchangeably. "Value chain" has been used to determine a vertical alliance or strategic network between several independent business organizations within a supply chain (Hobbs et al., 2000).

Methodology
This paper uses a two-fold approach to identifying key-sources that make available data to address the research questions: how digitalized is currently the European agricultural value chain? Which of the VC's stages received more investments? Are the European member states ready to implement smart-technologies in the agriculture sector? The two elements of the research are: a structured assessment of the leading European smart-farming projects implemented and a subjective assessment of their position on the value chain and a quantitative analysis of the use of Information, Communication, and Technology across the member states.
The first approach used to evaluate the European agriculture digitalization tendencies yielded over 50 papers. Projects' webpages, videos, presentations, objectives, and results were analyzed to define the principal objective and the total cost, where data was available. Figure 1 indicates the flow inside the agricultural value chain from the author's perspective, while Figure 2 comprises the overall European investments in agriculture among the value chain.
The second approach consisted of extracting the latest available datathe year 2018 -from the EUROSTAT database regarding ICT usage at work and other activities related to work. The collected data included all the 27 European member states and introduced seven indicators prone to indicate how familiar workers are with digital technologies accurately: I1: Individuals used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets or other portable devices at work; I2: Individuals used other computerized equipment or machinery such as those used in production lines, transportation or other services at work; I3: Individuals used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, other portable devices or other computerized equipment or machinery such as those used in production lines, transportation or other services at work; I4: Individuals exchanged emails or entered data in databases in their work; I5: Individuals used applications to receive tasks or instructions in their work; I6: Individuals used occupational specific software in their work; I7: Individuals developed or maintained IT systems or software in their work.

Results and discussions
From a general perspective, agricultural commodities are produced by a large number of farmers, and the final products or raw-material (depending on the product itself) are purchased and traded several times between the farm gate and the final consumer. A value chain can be distinguished as a vertical linking or a network between various VC parties involving operations such as harvesting, processing, storing, packaging, transportation, and distribution. (Figure 1) At the end of the valuechain, the final value-added may be influenced by time-delivery, flexibility, quality, innovativeness, costs, and so on. The opportunities of a VC actor to add-value depends on market characteristics and technological capabilities. (FAO, 2005)
To sustain the agricultural innovation projects, the European Union launched several initiatives as the European Rural Development Policy under the CAP, the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programs (H2020), and the Agricultural European Innovation Partnership Program (EIP-AGRI). (FAO & ITU, 2020). ROMI ROMI aims to promote sustainable, local, and human-scale agriculture. ROMI involves the development of a multipurpose platform to sustain organic and polyculture market-garden farms. The equipment used comprises of robotic tools, data, shared documentation, and research, and it will optimize production and enhance farmers' working conditions. It covers crop monitoring and weed management. S3P Agri-Food The platform will accelerate innovation and promote regional economic transformation by generating new value chains and connecting business organizations, clusters, research institutions, academia, and civil society. The project will add value to the following axes: (1) Consumer Involvement in Agri-food Innovation, (2) High-Tech Farming, (3) Nutritional Ingredients, (4) Smart sensor systems four agri-food, and (5) Traceability & Big Data.

Value chain [26]
Smart sensors 4 agri-food The project's objective is to support agri-food companies in leaping towards digitalization and ensuring that the agri-food sector develops into an interconnected, resilient, and intelligent environment. The initiative brings together clusters, technology & digital solutions providers, stakeholders, and companies, including small-farmers.

Acronym Primary Objective and Other Relevant Information Value Chain Position
SmartAgriHubs SmartAgriHubs aims to accelerate the digital transformation of the European agri-food sector. The project brings together a consortium of well over 164 partners in the European agri-food sector, out of which 140 are Digital Innovation Hubs embedded within 9 Regional Clusters. Source: Author's data compilation (2021).
General Note: For most of the projects, the cost was totally or 80% -90% supported by the EU. Although the projects attempted to involve most of the EU's member states, countries like Italy, Spain, Greece, and the Netherlands have been predominantly involved either through research clusters, universities, or farmers. When the project did not explicitly define its implementation area and touched different VC implementation-segments, it was considered to cover the entire value chain. Most of the projects started six years ago (2015), and some of the projects were successfully closed; others are still running. For further research, Bacco et al. (2019) present a general overview of each European project's most relevant technologies.
As Table 1 signifies, the EU's objective is to revitalize and sustain the agriculture industry through a wide-spread digitalization inclusively for small farmers by funding research programs to support innovative food products, rural development, and bioeconomy. The EU proposal for the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the 2021-2027 period includes EUR 365 billion for CAPrepresenting 28.5% of the EU budget (European Commission, 2018). An additional EUR 192 million was granted under Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 SC2, involving 434 participants. (European Commission, 2019).
The EU's focus was essentially orientated towards the first stage of the value chain, increasing efficiency and precision in farming activities (e.g., water-management, cropmonitoring, fertilization, disease-identification). Figure 2 comprises a visual overview of the digitalization projects implemented across the agricultural value chain.

Figure 2. European digital projects distribution among the agricultural value chain
Source: Author's own creation based on research (2021).
Agricultural digitalization was orientated mainly towards the value chain's first step -Input Supply. It is a notable observation since the input-supply can influence all the other sequential stages of the value chain. Almost half of the projects dedicated to the first stage contributed with a scattered value and covered the entire value chain. Other phases of the agricultural value chain which received funding and attention were "Production & Processing", "Distribution", "Retailer," and "Final Consumer." The agriculture sector's digitalization constrains a previously grounded ICT framework and implicitly trained human-capital. Otherwise, the process will take longer, and it will require higher investments. At first glance, it can be remarked that the use of ICT at work is divided into two main categories: countries that have already made impressive advancements (Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Austria, Malta, Sweden, Luxemburg) and countries that are still far behind the former group (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia) ( Figure 3).
As far as it concerns the third selected indicator "Individuals used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, other portable devices or other computerized equipment or machinery such as those used in production lines, transportation or other services at work", the top-performing countries are Netherlands (61%), Germany (54%) and Denmark (52%). At the opposite pole, the lowest percentage was registered in Romania (18%), Bulgaria (21%), and Greece (24%). Legend: 1: Individuals used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets or other portable devices at work 2: Individuals used other computerized equipment or machinery such as those used in production lines, transportation or other services at work 3: Individuals used computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, other portable devices or other computerized equipment or machinery such as those used in production lines, transportation or other services at work 4: Individuals exchanged emails or entered data in databases in their work 5: Individuals used applications to receive tasks or instructions in their work 6: Individuals used occupational specific software in their work 7: Individuals developed or maintained IT systems or software in their work Notably, the fifth indicator, "Individuals used applications to receive tasks or instructions in their work," indicates a downgrade in Germany (8%) and Denmark (11%) performance. As far as it concerns "Individuals used occupational specific software in their work", Austria (34%), Germany (32%), Netherlands (31%) are the top performers, while Romania (7%), Bulgaria (8%), Slovakia (10%) are at the opposite pole.
Finally, the largest share of "Individuals developed or maintained IT systems or software in their work" is registered by Denmark and Netherlands (8%), Austria, Malta, Slovenia, Sweden (7%). Conversely, only 1% of the individuals developed or maintained IT systems or software in their work in Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. A fragmented usage of ICT at work and activities leads to slowdowns and hindrances in digitizing the European agriculture sector. More into depth, there is an indirect correlation in terms of ICT performance and the share of agricultural land by country. Among the European nations with the highest agricultural land available are France, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Romania. At the same time, most of these countries are among the lowest performers in using ICT at work and other activities. Admittedly, implementing and spreading digitization measures among all the member-states with high agricultural potential will move-up Europe on the global agricultural value chain.

Conclusion
This article has provided a summary of the digitalization projects in the European agriculture sector. Being an investigative analysis, beyond summarizing each of the identified project's main objectives, the author grouped the projects under six main-stages of the agricultural value chain: input-supply, production & processing, distribution, retailer, final consumer, and the entire value chain.
It was found the European focus was orientated mainly towards the input-supply stage with 23 projects. The number of projects that influenced the entire value chain was 9, while for the other stages there were identified, the following number of initiatives: production & processing (4), distribution (4), retailer (3), final consumer (1). Furthermore, the paper adds a general perspective of the ICT use at work among other EU member states' activities.
When reflecting on the paper findings, limitations should be considered. Most importantly, the review of the current digitalization agricultural projects and their equivalent to the six stages of the value chain was ultimately the result of the author's interpretation and judgment. This limitation was minimized by consulting several scientific sources concerning the agricultural value chain stages and by studying a broader set of references for the selected project to understand better which stage it addresses.
To move-up on the agricultural VC and to enhance the sector's competitiveness, there is an imperative need to combine cooperation, interconnection, and interchange of skills and knowledge. Moreover, small producers should be supported to increase efficiency through access to smarttechnologies and expertise. The sooner is intervened in the agricultural chain, the more evenly the value is distributed to each VC member, including the final customer who receives access to better products whether in terms of price, quality, or availability. Further, a more homogenized implementation of ICT at work is required, and the countries with less performance should receive special attention from the European Union to close the ICT gap promptly.