8. #Digital: Digital technology, the farmer's lucky star

Cleaner, leaner, greener practices in Europe’s farm sector are vital if the EU is to reduce Co2 emissions and reach net carbon neutrality by 2050. What does that mean for farmers on the ground? Better land and soil management, more biodiversity and wildlife protection, and pinpoint-accurate sowing, spreading and harvesting techniques. As many farmers across Europe start using the latest data- and satellite-based technologies in the move to precision farming, they’re discovering it saves them time, money and effort. In combination with autonomous machinery, the data driving this transformation is collected and shared by dedicated European satellites, orbiting earth to map water, soil and vegetation cover, trace damaging gases and measure ocean and land topography. Digital agriculture contributes to European targets for better husbandry of the land and environment set in the Green Deal and the reformed Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) coming into force in 2023. In this “Food for Europe” podcast on the Digitalisation of Agriculture we feature one enterprising cereal farmer in Ireland who has seen his yields grow as the time he spends on repetitive tasks in the field declines. We speak to a scientist at the European Space Agency advancing space-based tools for agriculture, and to a cattle breeder in Estonia so digitally wired she monitors the well-being of her livestock from meetings several hundreds of kilometres away.