Summary

This report analyses the current state of digitalisation in EU agriculture, covering the adoption of general IT and software tools and farm-specific technologies, key drivers and barriers, perceived sustainability aspects, and farm-level practices in data collection, management and sharing.

The analysis is based on farm survey data from 1 444 respondents in nine EU Member States – Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland – collected between June and October 2024.

The results show that while general IT and software tools are widely used, more expensive technologies specific to crop or livestock production have been less widely adopted. Adoption rates are higher among larger farms, those with better internet connectivity and those with specialised training. Key drivers of adoption include efficiency gains, cost savings, regulatory pressures and improved quality of life, while high costs and limited skills remain notable barriers. Farmers expect digital technologies to have positive economic, environmental and social impacts. Farm-level data collection is still largely manual or based on basic digital tools, which increases the administrative burden on farmers. Farmers appear to take a selective approach to data sharing, mainly due to concerns about privacy, security and data control. Promoting transparent data policies, ensuring farmers benefit from sharing and adopting a targeted policy approach for advanced technologies can help build trust and support wider digital adoption.

Methodology

A comprehensive questionnaire was designed to collect farm-level data to assess the state of play of digitalisation in EU agriculture. The aim was to capture current levels of digital adoption and future intentions to adopt, while also exploring drivers of and barriers to adoption, enabling factors, potential contributions to sustainability and resilience, and data availability at the farm level.

The study included data collection in nine Member States – Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary and Poland – with the aim of achieving a representative sample of the EU agricultural population.

For the purposes of this survey, stratified sampling was used. Farm specialisation and farm size were the main characteristics used to develop this survey’s stratified random sampling strategy. There were three main farm specialisations used in the survey, namely, crop specialists, livestock specialists and mixed-farming specialists. Crop specialists referred to farmers for whom at least two thirds of their agricultural business was based on crop production. Similarly, livestock specialists referred to farmers for whom at least two thirds of their agricultural business was based on livestock production, while mixed-farming specialists were farmers for whom neither crop nor livestock production dominated.

Regarding farm size, three different classes (small, medium and large) were used in the survey. Farm size was categorised in terms of utilised agricultural area in hectares for crop specialisations and in LSU for livestock specialisations.

To ensure consistency and alignment with the distribution of the real farming population in Europe with regard to specific characteristics, a weighting system was developed and applied at two levels: first, by farm specialisations within each Member State (within-country), and second, by the number of farms in all nine Member States covered (across-country). When reporting results for the overall sample, the data are weighted using both within- and across-country weights, ensuring representativeness for the EU agricultural population surveyed (i.e. the Member States surveyed).

Dashboard

This dashboard is a supplementary material of the report “The state of digitalisation in EU agriculture: Insights from farm surveys”.

The figures allow for filtering at three levels:

• Age: Farmers below 40, between 40 and 50, between 50 and 60 and above 60.
• Size: Small, medium and large farms.
• Region:
  • North (Ireland and Lithuania).
  • East (Hungary and Poland).
  • West (Germany and France).
  • South (Greece, Spain and Italy).

Access the dashboards

Disclaimer

This interactive factsheet was created by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service.

It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policy-making process. The scientific output expressed does not imply a policy position of the European Commission.

Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this factsheet and underlying data.