Smart Agricultural Technology (Aug 2023)
“The importance of integrating Smart Farming Technologies into Rural Policies (Aiming at sustainable rural development)- Stakeholders’ views”
Abstract
Sustainable Rural Development involves eco-friendly management of Agricultural Systems while the research on Smart Farming Technologies (SFT) evolves towards that direction. A technology breakout such as Smart Farming, is lacking of feedback and network interactions, so Networking is crucial for knowledge accumulation and systems’ integration, thus, it embeds interaction between different elements, enhances feedback loops between them, integrates Research & Development and improves marketing practices. Rural development requires the insights of several established disciplines and needs to be connected to politics in order to achieve successful results, so this approach was applied. Moreover, if the goal is Sustainability, the interdisciplinarity of the involved scientists should assist policy decisions and be of use for Rural Strategic Planning. The equipment suppliers' participation in the planning of rural strategies should be explored due to the fact that the communication between them and policy makers does not always occur and their interests could conflict. Therefore, an empirical study was conducted among three groups of stakeholders- researchers, politicians and professionals in Greece; in order to explore the importance of implementing Smart Farming Technologies aiming at Sustainable Rural Development. Thematic and Content Analysis were applied. Then a Quantitative Analysis was performed in order to evaluate the stakeholders’ disagreement or consistency on their preferences in research orientation of SFTs’. The results not only indicated the challenges rural areas face in relation to the adoption of SFT, such as lack of strategic planning and necessary infrastructures, but also revealed the main reasons for underdevelopment and environmental degradation in Greece. Finally, the gap in communication and feedback between the stakeholders was confirmed. The results can be used by policy makers to customize their interventions based on the stakeholders’ priorities.
