4Growth at Synergy Days 2025: Driving Digital Change in Agriculture

Earlier this year, 4Growth featured in the Synergy portal — an innovation community connecting EU-funded projects in agri-food and beyond. Below you can read the full interview, where the 4Growth Technical Coordinator, Dáire Boyle, shares the project’s vision, key challenges, and opportunities for collaboration.

Thank you for joining us for Synergy Days 2025. 4Growth is already part of the Synergy Days community, where do you see the most added value for your work?

4Growth joined Synergy Days last year. We found the workshops and personal interactions with key projects in the same sector to be an incredibly valuable opportunity to learn from each other and address problems others may have.

What inspired the creation of your project?

More efforts are needed to assess the current landscape of digital and data-driven agriculture and forestry. The primary goal of 4Growth is to determine where, how, and to what extent digital and data technologies are being implemented in agriculture and forestry. By doing so, 4Growth aims to deepen understanding of the factors influencing market uptake, ultimately enabling the development of accurate forecasts to support policy decisions and encourage wider adoption.

What are some of the biggest challenges your project is currently addressing in terms of scaling digital innovation within the agri-food sector?

There is a lack of visibility and transparency when it comes to where and how digital technologies are being adopted. There is even less information on how the market is likely to move in the future. Illuminating this is the challenge 4Growth is trying to address.

Can you share some key lessons you have learned so far?

As part of 4Growth, we are aiming to collect a lot of ground truth data via surveys. We have learned that it can be very difficult to encourage people to fill in surveys without clear incentives. One thing we have done is reduce the length of the survey, thus encouraging response rate.

How do you see emerging trends like AI, IoT, and blockchain shaping the future of the agri-food sector, and how is your project exploring or implementing these technologies?

Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is transforming how market insights services collect and analyse data. Tools are being deployed to rapidly generate survey prompts, analyse rich media (like video), and surface insights in real-time. 4Growth’s adoption of web scraping to help gather primary data ensures that it remains relevant, competitive and in line with the clear and ongoing trend in the market of utilising emerging AI tools.

What are the key factors that will drive or hinder the widespread adoption of digital technologies in the agri-food sector in the coming years?

Costs are an obvious barrier. The initial investment required for digital technologies — such as sensors, drones, precision machinery, and software — can be prohibitively high for small- and medium-scale farmers. In many cases, the long-term benefits and cost savings may not be immediately clear or guaranteed, leading to skepticism and hesitation. One of the primary barriers is the lack of adequate digital infrastructure, particularly in rural and remote areas. Poor internet connectivity, insufficient mobile network coverage, and unreliable electricity supply can significantly limit farmers’ ability to access and use digital tools.

How do you ensure that the solutions you develop are adaptable to the diverse needs and capabilities of farmers, food producers, and other stakeholders across Europe?

4Growth is being developed iteratively, with data being gathered and analysed in three waves. This allows trends over time to be captured and ensures our findings are dynamic.

What opportunities do you foresee for further collaboration between research, policy and private sector actors to drive forward digital transformation in agri-food?

There are many opportunities and fora where entities in the R&D space can collaborate, including the likes of Synergy Days. Moreover, 4Growth has a dedicated Synergy Building task, whereby we are reaching out to other EU projects to see where we can help and learn from each other.

And lastly, what is for you the potential of communities such as Synergy Days to contribute to that? If so, would you encourage others to join it?

Synergy Days allows for face-to-face meetings with other similar initiatives. The workshops being held are amazing opportunities for different projects to share their findings and issues, developing a strong working relationship moving forward.

Stay tuned — by the time of Synergy Days 2025, we plan to unveil more details about the 4Growth Visualisation Platform, which will offer stakeholders across Europe a unique way to explore the adoption of digital and data technologies in agriculture and forestry.