From July 1 to 5, the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Intensive Programme (BIP) called “Digital transformation of agro-companies” was held at the UAL campus, coordinated by Antonio Fernández Martínez, professor at the University of Almeria in the area of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.
This course, organised by the Rector’s Delegation for UNIgreen European University in collaboration with the Vice-Rectorate for International Promotion of the UAL during the academic year 2023/2024, increases the possibilities of innovative academic activities for the university community offered by UNIgreen. On this occasion it has brought to our campus 30 international students of 9 nationalities from different UNIgreen member institutions in Bulgaria, Poland, and Portugal, joined by some students from the UAL itself.
The OECD in its publication “New technologies and digitalisation are transforming agriculture and offering new opportunities to improve policy” states that digital technologies are changing agriculture and the agri-food system. These technological advances can contribute to the goal of achieving more resilient, productive and sustainable agriculture and food systems that better meet the needs of consumers.
For all of the above, this course aims to contribute to promoting the advantages of digitization so those who are university students, and tomorrow will be agricultural professionals and entrepreneurs, understand the importance of adopting new technologies that improve the sustainability and profitability of farms and at the same time solve pressing problems such as food security and climate change.
Thanks to the collaboration of the Almeria-based company Hispatec, an international leader in software development for the agri-food sector, attendees have learnt about the main information systems and emerging technologies that leading companies in the sector around the world have implemented to carry out their digital transformation.
To verify that the more academic proposals presented the first days of the course are already a reality that has been implemented and is being successfully exploited in Almeria companies, the group visited the automated packaging center of Agroponiente and the smart greenhouses that are being tested in the UAL-Anecoop farm. They also had the chance to get to know in detail the success case of the Unica cooperative in terms of the development of applications to interact with their farmer producers and finally they visited the Tecnova R&D laboratory to learn about the new technological proposals that are being forged for the digital transformation of Almeria’s agri-food companies.
We are sure that these students will return to their institutions and countries of origin having known first-hand the Almeria Model of sustainable production and having understood how to carry out the digital transformation in companies in their country, thanks to the high digital maturity they have observed in Almeria agri-food companies.
