On 17 and 18 November, the Horizon project Path2DEA held its final conference in Brussels, at the L42 Brussels Center. PATH2DEA (Paving the Way towards Digitalisation Enabling Agroecology for European Farming Systems) is a 3-year Horizon Research project committed to unlocking digitalisation’s catalysing power to foster European agriculture’s transition towards enhanced sustainability. This final conference was an opportunity to present some key results of the project and give the floor to sibling projects and key stakeholders engaged in the topic of digitalisation and agriculture.
Debates were fruitful; however, the topic of digitalisation in agroecology remains a complicated one. Opportunities exist, and digital tools can surely be elements in the agroecological food systems transformation, but digitalisation also brings a lot of challenges and concerns.
Agroecology Europe advocates for the transformation of food systems based on the principles of agroecology and the values attached to it. Digital tools could be involved in this process, but their development is often based on assumptions that are not agroecological. In that sense, Agroecology Europe was involved in various research activities within the project: Agroecology Europe participated in the first reflection session to lead to the development of a Digital tools’ Suitability for Agroecology Framework. This work highlighted key concerns and challenges in considering how current digital tools are a fit for agroecology.
Agroecology Europe also took part in organising various webinars and workshops to address different topics: a stakeholder workshop to explore how digitalisation can boost agroecology, an EU policy roundtable and co-creation workshop on Agroecology supported by Digital Tools, and a workshop to explore the ethical, legal, and social aspects of digitalisation in agroecology. Agroecology Europe also helped organise science-policy meetings to present Path2DEA’s results. Results and deliverables will soon be published.
Participating in this project was interesting for Agroecology Europe as it addressed the previously largely unquestioned trend of digitalisation, broadly considered as a normal and positive development for agriculture, whereas, in fact, it raises key concerns for a real transition of food systems towards one based on agroecology principles and values. Agroecology Europe advocated tirelessly within the project and beyond to always put agroecology as the end-goal, rather than digitalisation. It enabled Agroecology Europe to strengthen its contacts with organisations working on the same topic, such as IPES-Food, which is investigating how narratives around innovation pave the way for specific pathways for technological development in food systems. This collaboration culminated during the Agroecology Europe Forum 2025, where both organisations held a common workshop on digitalisation and narratives on innovation.
In summary, for digital tools to fit within agroecology, involved stakeholders (tech providers, farmers, advisors, policymakers, etc) must always have the agroecological transformation as the goal to be achieved. The end is not the digitalisation of food systems – that can be just one of the means.
