Cristiana-Ioana Șerbănel

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.

The paper addresses the sustainability of the European Union’s food consumption through a water footprint assessment of selected vulnerable agricultural imports from a two-pronged perspective: (1) the degree of the EU’s dependence on global green water resources embedded in the apparent consumption of selected water-intensive agricultural products and (2) the degree of commitment of countries of origin to sustainability policies. The study argues that the vulnerability of the EU’s agricultural imports to water risks can be estimated based on the amount of green water consumed in producing crops in the countries of origin. The results show that the EU’s consumption of agricultural goods is highly dependent on virtual water imports for all six selected vulnerable agricultural products, from the lowest footprint for bananas (5 mil. km³) to the largest for coffee (69 mil. km³). The analysis also points to a greater concern for quality issues in the countries of origin (56.53%) relative to management (26.52%) and availability issues (16.85%), but the latter are to arise in importance for sustainable production in the years to come. Our conclusions contribute to building up a responsible commitment towards (1) development of environmental policies and the design of practical measures by providing quantitative information that makes problems more clearly defined and tangible, and (2) assessing the outcome of policies and practical measures by understanding their effects on the sustainability of food consumption.