Innovation in Basilicata agriculture: From tradition to digital

Abstract

The 4.0 technologies are changing agricultural production processes and with them the agro-food supply chains, fundamental for the competitiveness of the Made in Italy and Basilicata, a region of southern Italy. It has invested in modernization and restructuring of agricultural, agri-food and forestry farms by rural development policies, which address respect for sustainability and to reduction of renewable and non-renewable resources, preserving quality and the link with the territory.   Some Lucanian agricultural entrepreneurs, interested in experimenting with innovative and sustainable agriculture, has intensified relations with the local scientific world, the advisors, training institutions and with small and medium-sized agro-industrial enterprises, setting up clusters. Then European Partnerships for Innovation have formed inside them.   This paper analyses the eleven Operational Groups of the Lucanian European Partnerships which represent the incubators for the digitalization of agri-food 4.0. From the analysis it emerged that the maximum expression of digitization in Basilicata is Precision Farming, as evidenced by the establishment of a specific operating group, AgrotechBasilicata. However, the other Lucanian OGs can also be classified as digital because they are interested by information collection systems, software and data analysis, as well as robotics and automation.