On 25 February 2026, APPAG participated in the conference “Smart Agrifood: Signs of Recovery, Between Old Challenges and New Opportunities” organised by the Smart Agrifood Observatory (Milan, Italy) at the invitation of ALMAVIVA.

The Smart AgriFood Observatory organised this event to present the results of its 2025 research about the impact of digital innovation in the agri-food sector.

Approximately 300 people attended the event, including company representatives, students and researchers. The partners invited to the discussion panels presented their backgrounds and the Agriculture 4.0 solutions adopted within their respective companies. These included platforms and apps for precision and regenerative agriculture, AI-driven field data management, IoT and automation, climate monitoring, soil parameter analysis, and applications that support supply chain traceability and decision-making through integrated sensors, systems, and vehicles.

Notable organizations and companies in attendance included Loacker, Mutti, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and Bayer.

APPAG participated in the round-table discussion “Agriculture 4.0: The Market and the State of the Art in Italy,” presenting the activities carried out under the AgriDataValue project.

APPAG explained how the value of the project is demonstrated through a large number of pilot sites in different European countries, covering various areas, including crops, livestock, agri-food supply chains, and climate monitoring. It also clarified how Agridatavalue aims to create an open and federated European digital platform capable of integrating data from satellites, drones, IoT sensors, and administrative sources, transforming it into verifiable, timely, and truly usable information. APPAG illustrated the advanced technologies used such as IoT, Earth Observation, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain to provide concrete support for the digital transformation of the agri-food sector.

Furthermore, APPAG explained its role as a CAP Paying Agency within the project. Alongside two other paying agencies from Lithuania and Romania, APPAG helps integrate parameters and indicators related to the 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) into the AgriDataValue platform. This is achieved through targeted studies and periodic reports, developed in close collaboration with technology partners. This multi-entity collaboration is essential for identifying solutions that genuinely align with CAP requirements, thereby bridging the gap between policy, technology, and agricultural practices. The involvement of paying agencies has underscored the project’s contribution to European objectives, drawing a clear parallel between AgriDataValue’s activities and their significance in achieving the macro-objectives of the 2023-2027 CAP.

As part of the work package dedicated to climate monitoring, APPAG provided anonymized land-use data from the Autonomous Province of Trento. Technology partners reprocessed this data using advanced predictive analytics and AI models, transforming territorial data into high-resolution climate forecast scenarios for the Trentino region. This facilitated the correlation of land use with environmental indicators, the identification of climate change trends, and the formulation of recommendations to help farmers develop effective climate adaptation strategies.

In conclusion, participation in this conference allowed APPAG to present the evolution and achievements of the AgriDataValue project to a diverse panel of experts, and to emphasize the importance of new technologies for the operations of CAP Paying Agencies.