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Innovation has to be driven by farmers in order to be able to respond to their needs and they have to be involved in the research processes from an early stage. This is crucial for the future of rural areas. Farmers never stop innovating. Every generation brings new technological and organisational improvements. Farmers generate innovative solutions themselves that often go unnoticed by public. There is a huge amount of hidden knowledge that needs to be revealed and efficiently used and more should be done here.
Collaboration is the key to making innovation happen. Collaboration is especially relevant when speaking about opportunities in digital agriculture where technologies need to be adapted to users' needs. This means giving farmers and agribusiness leaders the tools and confidence to reach out to new partners in the ICT and digital industry.
The European Commission wants to build “bridges” between agriculture and the ICT sector in order to better address the environmental challenges of farming. Information technologies could help farmers reduce the EU’s emissions of greenhouse gases, 10% of which come from agriculture.
Digital technologies in agriculture are a high priority of the European Union. Around € 100 million is set aside in the Horizon 2020 program for the period 2018-2020, which aims to stimulate the development and implementation of digital technologies in agriculture and rural areas, as well as to prepare them for the impact of the digital revolution.
The EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the EU Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) are both relevant for aquaponics, tackling the aquaculture and hydroponics components respectively (European Commission 2012, European Commission 2013). Policies on food safety, animal health and welfare, plant health, and the environment (waste and water) also apply[1].
Part of the CAP is the Rural Development Policy, also referred to as the second pillar of CAP, which focuses on increasing competitiveness and promoting innovation (Ragonnaud 2017)[2]. Each Member State has at least one rural development programme. Most countries have set goals to provide training, restructure and modernise existing farms, set up new farms and reduce emissions. Measures against excessive use of inorganic fertilisers were introduced in the CAP and environmental policies and are regulated through the EU’s Nitrates Directive (Directive 91/676/EEC 1991) and the Water Framework Directive (WDF). The goal of the WFD is to protect the ecological and chemical status of surface waters and quantitative status of groundwater bodies (European Union 2016).
The CAP so far does not include support for urban agriculture, and the Rural Development Policy is solely focused on rural areas (Curry et al. 2015). There are also no other existing policies specifically covering urban food production.
The CFP reform and the strategic guidelines for the sustainable development of EU aquaculture were issued by the Commission to assist EU countries and stakeholders to tackle challenges that the sector is facing. It emphasises on the sustainable development of the aquaculture sector and facilitates the implementation of the WFD in relation to sustainable aquaculture (European Commission, 2013).
The CFP requires the development of a Multiannual National Strategic Plan in each Member State to develop strategies to promote and develop the aquaculture sector (European Commission 2016).
agriculture, and the Rural Development Policy is solely focused on rural areas (Curry et al. 2015). There are also no other existing policies specifically covering urban food production.
The CFP reform and the strategic guidelines for the sustainable development of EU aquaculture were issued by the Commission to assist EU countries and stakeholders to tackle challenges that the sector is facing. It emphasises on the sustainable development of the aquaculture sector and facilitates the implementation of the WFD in relation to sustainable aquaculture (European Commission, 2013).
The CFP requires the development of a Multiannual National Strategic Plan in each Member State to develop strategies to promote and develop the aquaculture sector (European Commission 2016).
Environmental impacts of aquaculture are regulated under a range of EU legal requirements including water quality, biodiversity and pollution. Environmental policies relevant for aquaponic operators are the Strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste (European Commission 2011) and the 7th Environment Action Programme (EAP) under the EU Environmental Policy (European Union 2014).
None of these EU policies and guidelines so far explicitly mentions aquaponics. According to DG MARE, regulations on aquaponics need to be resolved within the individual Member States (COST Action FA1305 2017), e.g. involving action resulting from the respective National Strategic Plans.
One of the priorities in the strategy on aquaculture is to improve access to space and water (European Commission 2013). Competition among different stakeholders and often strict environmental rules limit the further development of open aquaculture systems inside the EU. Aquaponics systems can be located almost anywhere, including deserts, degraded soil and salty, sandy islands, since it is a closed-loop using a minimum of water. Therefore, it can utilise space that is not suitable for other food production systems, like rooftops, abandoned industrial sites and generally non-arable or contaminated land. Since aquaponics reuses 90-95% of the water, it relies much less on water availability compared to other systems like open aquaculture, hydroponics, and irrigation agriculture.
Larger commercial aquaponics systems have a high level of biosecurity and environmental conditions can be fully controlled ensuring a healthy environment for the fish, thus minimising the risk for diseases and parasite outbreaks.
Because of the higher control on production, losses are lower, which can provide aquaponic farmers with a competitive advantage over traditional farmers. On the other hand, using one nitrogen source to culture two products (Somerville et al. 2014), increases the investment risk as both fish and plant production must be maximised in order to make profit. However, if this is done successfully, combined with the positive view on more ecologically produced products in Western markets, high revenues can be achieved (Somerville et al. 2014).
The Seventh Framework Programme (under the Multiannual Financial Framework of the European Commission) funded a couple of projects related to aquaponics, the most relevant one called INAPRO (Innovative model and demonstration based water management for resource efficiency in integrated multitrophic agriculture and aquaculture systems) carried out by 17 partners from 7 countries. INAPRO aimed at improving current approaches to rural and urban aquaponics through the development of a model and the integration of innovative technologies to save water, energy and nutrients (http://www.inapro-project.eu). The EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (challenge 2 ‘Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy’ and challenge 5 ‘Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials), provides funding to several aquaponic initiatives, like EASY, CoolFarm and ECOFISH. Because of the innovative nature and the necessity to improve the available technologies, it is expected that funding for research will be made available by the Member States (Hovenaars et al., 2018).
The EU, through the Horizon 2020 programme, also supported the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action FA1305 “The EU Aquaponics Hub: Realising Sustainable Integrated Fish and Vegetable Production for the EU” to promote innovation and capacity building by a network of researchers and commercial aquaponics companies. Several participants of the COST Action participated in a workshop in Brussels with DG MARE, DG AGRI and DG RTD in order to communicate the status quo of aquaponics in Europe and to explore avenues to support its development in order to fulfil its potential to become a significant part of a sustainable food production strategy for the EU. DG AGRI recognises that aquaponic production has numerous benefits and can be considered more sustainable than conventional agriculture. DG Mare works with the individual Member States to identify bottlenecks and implement regulations and will raise this issue at their next technical seminar (COST Action FA1305 2017).
Hydroponics and aquaponics are yet in the first experimental phase of its development and initiatives in these fields are created by private entities and enthusiasts. In terms of educating professionals, students and enthusiasts, the private sector is also the prominent source to deliver such trainings.
For Cyprus the following examples are present:
“Cyprus Agro Industry Center” (2020) organise and carry out 1-day trainings that include theory and practice for those interested in learning about Hydroponics and Aquaponics.
The Cyprus Agricultural Research Institute opened up the Hydroponics Education Centre in 2014, offering Vocational Education to agriculture professionals.
On academic level, no specific programmes have been found during our research.
In terms of consultancy, a small number of organisations offer consultancy services to those who are looking into developing their own systems. Consultancy services include general education about the subject, securing resources, system construction, maintenance and cultivation training.
Experts from the Institute of Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus suggest that the most effective way to introduce and expand the concept of Aquaponics and Hydroponics in Cyprus is through Vocational Education (Neokleous 2014)[3].
Smart farming in Turkey, producers (farmers), private sector (manufacturers, technology providers), public associations and cooperatives with the industry and represents a common area consisting of universities.
Producers, on smart farming; forecast of weather conditions and pest control with satellite and warning systems, decrease in labor and production costs, efficient use of agricultural inputs and resources, increase in product amount and yield thanks to technological equipment; They are in this concept in terms of production that attaches importance to nature and human health.
Technology firms, smart farming practices or technological applications in agriculture; They are the addressees of the issue in terms of using digital technologies in agricultural production stages, providing automation, digitalization and synchronization in the process from the field to the table, reducing costs, increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
Unions and cooperatives, on the other hand, use appropriate computer technology, drones, sensors and so on at every stage of smart farming applications from the production stage to the harvesting and processing technologies and the marketing process. They were involved in the process in the form of using information technologies such as
Public and universities, smart farming practices; Unlike traditional agriculture, they have guided their activities on managing the variability of nature, traceability, use of sensors, sustainability, quality management, cost estimation, preventive agriculture and efficient use of resources through big data analysis from planning in agricultural production to reaching the end user.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry takes important steps in implementing many technologies and informatics bases such as information technologies, decision support systems, technological agriculture applications, agricultural information systems, registration and database systems, both in their strategic plans and legislative arrangements, and in the fields of activity of the main service units. has recorded. In this framework, data analysis and reporting, which will be the basis for planning, can be made with databases created in all components of agricultural production.
Some smart farming projects implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Turkey are as follow:
a) Development of Domestic Automatic Tractor Steering and Control (OTAK) System Project:
b) Farm Management System Development Project
c) Precision Farming Applications Project Based on Image Processing with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
d) Development of a System for Monitoring and Tracking Grain Losses in Wheat Harvest
e) Development of Smart Measurement Platform Prototype for Ovine Breeding
Practices defined as Smart Farming are closely monitored by the General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies, the Department of Soil and Water Resources Research and affiliated Institutes. Thus, it is aimed to increase the technology level of the country, thereby optimizing the agricultural inputs and increasing the profitability rate. It is also seen that all these studies are in line with the IPOL (Directore – General for Internal Policies / Policiy Department Structural and Cohesion Policies – Precision Farming) 2014-2020 Report.
General Directorate of Agricultural Studies and Policies is the biggest R&D institute of Turkey with its 195.535 da of land, 2.200 researchers, 6.235 employees, 48 Research Institutes, 21 Authorized Institutions and 1.200 projects.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323082393_EU_policies_New_opportunities_for_aquaponics
[2] Ragonnaud, G. 2017. “Second pillar of the CAP: Rural Development Policy.” Fact sheets on the European Union. European parliament.4p. Available online: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/displayFtu.html?ftuId=FTU_3.2.6.html
[3] NEOKLEOUS. D. (2014) ARI Hydroponics Training Centre Manual. Available from: http://news.ari.gov.cy/content/Ydrponia_Exeiridio.pdf [ last accessed October 15th 2020]
