Fertilizer Ordinance, water protection, high energy costs, rising minimum wage - farmers see themselves under pressure.

Digitization, among other things, could help.

Hesse's digital minister, Kristina Sinemus (CDU), says she wants to promote this.

"Digital technologies make agriculture more productive, efficient and resource-saving," said Sinemus on Tuesday evening at the so-called Digital Leaders Roundtable in Brussels.

Farmers have long since stopped cultivating their fields with just human skill and mechanical power as they did in their childhood, but also with digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

“In the past, the most important farming areas were fields, barns and stables.

Today there is a fourth: the digital space,” she said.

Patricia Andreae

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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And she took the view: “Digital technologies have the potential to enable agriculture to produce in a more ecological, efficient and resource-saving manner.” Because analysis of soil conditions and weather data as well as tailor-made control could make it possible to use fertilizers much better, for example.

And that could help to achieve the EU's climate goals.

animal welfare and animal health

Karsten Schmal, President of the Hessian Farmers' Association, also agrees.

The farmer, who runs a dairy farm with his son, added: "They also promote animal welfare and animal health." He uses milking robots on his farm and has found that the animals produce up to four liters more milk than in conventional milking parlors would give

The use of digital technology can therefore also contribute to security of supply, which is becoming even more important in view of the war in Ukraine.

According to Schmal, however, a decisive prerequisite for being able to use the potential of digitization in agriculture is “the nationwide availability of fast internet, as well as the trouble-free functionality under practical conditions and last but not least the cost-effectiveness”.

On his trip to Brussels, however, he had only just experienced how many dead spots there were.

Sinemus promised here that the state of Hesse was planning high investments in order to better open up rural areas for digital.

Agriculture 4.0

Like Schmal, Sinemus also sees increasing digitization as an opportunity to make work in agriculture more attractive for young people.

However, the agricultural sector is faced with fierce competition when it comes to finding junior staff.

Jörg Migende, Head of Digital Farming at BayWa AG, demands: "For Farming 4.0 to finally arrive on the farms, there needs to be open communication and a clear division of tasks between business, the state, science and associations." Like the other participants in the discussion, he pointed out the still unanswered question of what happens to all the data collected in digital farming.

In the Netherlands, for example, there are cooperative models to make this data accessible.

Niklas Veltkamp, ​​member of the management of the Bitkom association and responsible for digitization and innovation, says: "Tomorrow's agriculture is digital, networked and sustainable." It offers great potential to support the sustainable transformation of agriculture - in biodiversity as well as in nature Combating climate change or animal and soil health.

“Today there is already a wide range of digital solutions for companies of all shapes and sizes.

Digital applications and services are also a low-threshold entry point for small or ecological farms in order to make management more sustainable and efficient at the same time.” However, the farms needed fast and, above all, permanent support in adopting the technologies in everyday operations.