Author: Serafin Pazos-Vidal (AEIDL)
Brussels, 30 October 2025 – The QuantiFarm, a sister Horizon Europe project of CODECS, is concluding with a high-level Final Policy Event hosted at the COPA-COGECA premises in Brussels. The event brought together EU policymakers, researchers, farmers, and agri-digital innovators to explore how digitalisation can drive a more competitive, sustainable, and resilient European agriculture.
Held under the theme “Bridging Policy Gaps for Digitalisation”, the event showcased QuantiFarm’s evidence-based recommendations and tools, including its Policy Monitoring Tool and findings from 30 test cases across Europe. The event emphasised the need for inclusive, sustainable, and competitive digital agriculture.
Digitalisation as Farmer-Centric Policy
The venue—COPA-COGECA, the voice of European farmers and agri-cooperatives—symbolised the event’s commitment to farmer-led digitalisation. COPA’s Deputy Secretary General, Patrick Pagani, participated in the panel discussion, reinforcing the need for policy coherence, trust-building, and capacity development to ensure that digital tools are accessible and beneficial to all types of farms. There is too much focus on Digitalisation as a separate workstream as well as a cross-deparmental effort, at EU and domestic level. Echoing the recent Generational Renewal in Agriculture Strategy, there is a significang work needed to alleviating the burden to farmers, and digitalisation must be an enabler rather than an additional barrier or requirement for farmers.
CODECS Contributions on policy environments and tools
Representing the CODECS project, Professor Mar Delgado (University of Córdoba) joined by Serafin Pazos Vidal (AEIDL) delivered a joint presentation that highlighted CODECS’ systemic approach to digitalisation. Their key messages included:
- Policy Landscape Mapping: CODECS screened CAP National Strategic Plans and conducted interviews with EU and national policymakers to assess how digitalisation is embedded in agricultural policy.
- Digital Ecosystem Framework: They presented a multi-level analysis of digitalisation impacts—covering process-level, ecosystem-level, and socio-ecological system-level costs and benefits.
- No One-Size-Fits-All: Emphasising that digitalisation is a long-term, context-specific process, they called for place-based strategies, farmer-centred design, and coherence across funding instruments.
- Building Absorptive Capacity: CODECS stressed the importance of improving digital readiness through skills development, advisory services, and trust in technology.
- Public–Private Collaboration: They advocated for inclusive business models and interoperability standards to ensure equitable access to digital tools.
Their intervention underscored the complementarity between CODECS and QuantiFarm, particularly in aligning evidence-based policy tools with real-world farmer needs and governance challenges. While AEIDL work in new tools for policymakers to support digitalisation in agriculture is still being developed, UCO´s very extensive CODECS Deliverable on policy environments for digitalisation of agriculture across Europe is already available and indeed ready to be used in the debate of the role of digitalisation in agriculture in the new CAP.
The Quantifarm coordinator Dionysios Solomos (GAIA) higlighted the positive fact that CODECS still has one year to go. Therefore CODECS can build upon QUANTIFARM results and tailor them even further with the new CAP post-2027 that is still being developed.
Looking Ahead
The event concluded with a forward-looking panel featuring representatives from DG AGRI, CEMA, GAIA EPICHEIREIN, and CONFAGRICOLTURA, who echoed the need for:
- Strengthening data governance and interoperability.
- Supporting AKIS integration and farmer engagement.
- Promoting cross-project collaboration to scale up successful digital solutions.
No doubt plenty of ideas for CODECS to develop even further in the remaining year of the project.
