FBK participates in Synergy Days 2025 in Rotterdam

Last week, ctober 21-22, the annual Synergy Days took place in Rotterdam, an event promoted by the SmartAgriHubs Community. The two-day conference focused on European projects operating in the agri-food sector, with the aim of encouraging and promoting the development of collaborations and synergies between the multiple projects funded in the European context under the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programs. Again this year, the objective was achieved through a series of meetings, expert panels, short pitches of existing projects during the plenary sessions, and thematic workshops carried out to share ideas and identify funding opportunities and future research and innovation needs in the agri-food context. The event also included an exhibition area where each team had the chance to present their results and interact directly with other participants and visitors.  In fact, 33 projects and more than 300 people from 59 countries around the world participated in the event.

FBK contributed to the conference by leading the dissemination of the results of the AgrifoodTEF project, of which it is the coordinating body, and through its involvement in the CEADS project, which started in April.

Representing AgrifoodTEF were Raffaele Giaffreda, the Coordinator, and Edoardo Corona, the project’s PM, both from the Open IoT Unit.

A meeting of the CEADS project partners was also held alongside the conference, where the first approaches to engagement and onboarding for what will become the Common European Agricultural Data Space were discussed.

The event proved to be fruitful, and the AgrifoodTEF stand—set up in collaboration with project partner Trust-IT Services—drew great interest from the public, enabling interaction with key stakeholders, including representatives of trade associations and European ministries.

As also highlighted during the xTEF event in Milan, the active involvement of all “multipliers” — including trade associations, ministries, investors, and other organizations that can promote the implementation of project results — is essential to the success of these initiatives.  For this reason, the opportunity to interface at Synergy Days with various representatives of this type of entity was particularly important.

At the conference, during a “VIP Tour” of the exhibition space, Raffaele presented the AgrifoodTEF project to key guests, including:

• Roald Lapperre, Secretary General, Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature (LVVN)
• Sjoukje Heimovaara, President of the Executive Board, Wageningen University & Research
• Jesper Stendal Sørensen, AgData Partnership Project Coordinator
• Henry van Burgsteden, Senior Innovation Officer, FAO, United Nations

AgrifoodTEF has also contributed to the issues addressed and participated in 3 workshops entitled:

• Data spaces as fuel for agri-food AI development: Ethical, legal, and social aspects
• How to cross the valley of death in agrifood AI and robotics

• Data in agriculture: a treasure for a sustainable food value chain

The workshops, designed to encourage active participation, once again highlighted the central and strategic role of data in developing impactful solutions for farmers. They also underscored the need for technologies and infrastructures that enable pre-market validation of these solutions, supporting the creation of sustainable economic models for projects like the TEFs, which develop public utility infrastructures.