Farmtopia is an EU-funded Horizon Europe project dedicated to making advanced digital agriculture tools accessible to all farmers — especially small and medium producers. The project focuses on practical, affordable, and easy-to-use digital solutions that improve decision-making, reduce production risks, and support climate-resilient farming across Europe.
The Digital Platform Empowering Small Farmers to Grow Old Vegetable Varieties for a Climate-Resilient Future Tailored agronomic advice, traceability, and supply chain connectivity for cabbage and onion cultivation in Vojvodina.
ABS Veggie
Sector: Old vegetable varieties (cabbage, onion) Countries Involved: Serbia Partners and Farms involved:
Agro Budžet Sistem (ABS): SIP leader, ADS provider
Poljoprivredno gazdinstvo “Svetislav Pačarić” (PGSP): Farm partner; pilot testing on parcels cultivating old cabbage and onion varieties in Vojvodina, Serbia.
The Need for Climate-Resilient Farming
Farming in Vojvodina, Serbia, faces climate variability, with prolonged droughts and irregular precipitation creating instability. Transitioning to climate-resilient, drought-tolerant crops offers a pathway forward, but farmers encounter persistent barriers: knowledge and resource gaps, unpredictable investment outcomes, limited market access, and a digital divide.
How Will ABS Veggie Address the Challenge?
ABS Veggie is a farmer-centric Agricultural Digital Solution (ADS) developed for small-scale vegetable producers, particularly those cultivating old and biodiversity-friendly varieties such as cabbage and onion. The platform supports farmers facing climate stress, irrigation challenges, and production uncertainties by offering data-driven, field-specific insights. Built upon the existing ABS platform (TRL6), ABS Veggie integrates new features to reach TRL8 by the end of the project. The upgraded solution combines remote sensing, drone data, and farm-level activity monitoring through three interconnected modules:
Production Module for Old Vegetable Varieties
Provides localized, variety-specific recommendations by integrating EO data (e.g., Sentinel), climate information, and regional gene bank datasets to support decision-making throughout the growing season.
Supplier–Farmer Network Module
Facilitates improved communication and transparency between farmers and input suppliers by enabling tailored input offers, based on anonymized production plans and farmer demand.
Farmtopia Digital Field Book Module
Integrated via API, this module allows standardised logging of field operations, ensuring traceability, compliance, and alignment with sustainability standards (e.g., eco-schemes).
EO Monitoring module
Developed within The Farmtopia Project enables realtime satellite monitoring of agricultural production trough the analysis of vegatation indices, crop conditions and field changes.
Why ABS Veggie?
Project Background and Context
Small farmers in Vojvodina face growing challenges from drought, climate variability, and market barriers.
Traditional vegetable varieties offer a sustainable solution, but farmers lack the digital tools and support needed to grow them effectively and profitably.
Validation Strategy
Where and How We Validate ABS Veggie
Location
Pilot implementation on two 0.5 ha parcels in Serbia (Žabalj, Province of Vojvodina).
Timeline
One full growing cycle: cabbage: Jul–Nov onion: Sep–Apr
Method
Real-farm co-creation, testing, and validation with continuous farmer feedback, using EO data, drones, and digital traceability tools.
Goal
Reach TRL 8 with verified field performance, usability, and scalability.
Innovative. Inclusive. Impactful.
Our Innovation and Impact
Integrates satellite data, drone technology, and local gene bank resources to deliver real-time, crop-specific recommendations for old vegetable varieties.
Empowering Small Farmers
Offers a cost-free, user-friendly platform tailored to the needs of smallholders—closing the digital gap and supporting climate resilience.
Real-World Impact
Demonstrated potential to: boost yield, reduce water use, pesticide, fertilizer, and energy consuption enable market access through digital traceability, support biodiversity and EU sustainability goals.
Successful ABS Veggie Open Day
Held in Žabalj within the Farmtopia Project
Location
we successfully organized the ABS Veggie Open Day at the partner farm PG Svetislav Pačarić in Žabalj, as part of the Farmtopia project, funded by the EUHorizon Europe programme.
The event gathered farmers, agronomists, advisors, technology providers, and other stakeholders interested in the future of sustainable and climate resilient agriculture.
Through practical field demonstrations and presentations, we showcased how digital technologies can support small and medium sized vegetable producers in improving productivity, sustainability, and decision making processes.
Key objectives
During the OpenDay, we successfully achieved key objectives defined within the Farmtopia Open Day dissemination framework:
Promotion of digital agriculture solutions among farmers and stakeholders Demonstration of practical implementation of EO technologies Strengthening collaboration between farmers, technology providers, and advisors Increasing awareness of climate resilient agricultural practices Presentation of innovative tools developed within the ABSVeggie platform Dissemination and visibility of Farmtopia project activities and EU Horizon support Participants had the opportunity to see live demonstrations of:
EO satellite parcel monitoring and NDVI analysis Farmtopia Digital Field Book functionalities Drone applications in precision agriculture Dario Ačai Production planning and field activity tracking Farmer–supplier digital connectivity tools ETRI SOLUTIONS Data driven decision making processes in vegetable production
Focus
Special focus was placed on the production of traditional vegetable varieties such as onion and cabbage, and on how modern technologies can support more sustainable and climatebadaptive farming practices.
The event clearly demonstrated how the combination of traditional agricultural knowledge and advanced digital tools can create new opportunities for farmers and contribute to the future of resilient food production systems.
We would like to thank all participants, partners, and contributors for their support and active participation.
Registered with the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia under number 990, registration number 2020/4946 A-0362/2020 dated November 19, 2020.
