Cyprus among weakest EU states for farm digitalisation

Cyprus had one of the lowest levels of precision farming adoption in the EU in 2023, with only about 1 per cent of farms using such technology, according toa report from Eurostat.

The figures also show that about 43 per cent of EU farms had internet access in 2023, with northern and central European countries such as Denmark, Germany, Slovakia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Austria all recording rates above 90 per cent.

Eurostat said farm management information systems, meaning digital platforms used to run farm operations, were used by about 11 per cent of EU farms.

France recorded the highest use of those systems, at about 60 per cent, the report added.

By contrast, the adoption of robotics remained limited across the bloc, covering about 7 per cent of all farms.

The statistics also show that around 18 per cent of farms with utilised agricultural area used some form of precision farming technology or practice in 2023.

These included robotics for plant protection products, band spraying, variable rate techniques, precision monitoring of crops and soil analysis.

Although those farms represented a minority, they managed about 44 per cent of the EU’s total utilised agricultural area.

That uneven spread points to the scale of the land concentration effect, with larger and more technologically advanced farms accounting for a much greater share of agricultural output.

At country level, Luxembourg, Finland and Estonia had the highest shares of utilised agricultural area managed by farms using precision farming, with each above 75 per cent.

At the other end of the scale, Cyprus recorded about 1 per cent, while Greece and Romania were both between 10 and 15 per cent.

The figures underline the gap between more digitally advanced farming systems and countries where uptake remains at a very early stage.

For Cyprus, the figures suggest that agriculture still has a long way to go before precision tools become mainstream, despite wider European efforts to modernise food production and improve efficiency.

They also place the island among the weakest performers in the bloc on one of the clearest indicators of farm digitalisation.