A new page for the Greek primary sector is attempting to open the “Reverse Agriculture” programme, with the Ministry of Rural Development and Food promoting, in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Policy and Artificial Intelligence, a project that aims to bring agricultural production closer to the digital era and international markets.
Behind the new digital applications and platforms, the goal is broader: to give Greek agriculture a unified digital identity, greater transparency, a cleaner export footprint and a more stable presence abroad.
The project, funded by the Recovery Fund, is designed as an integrated extroversion ecosystem for Greek agri-food. Through common digital infrastructures, producers, cooperatives, businesses and consumers will be connected, with the aim of better organization, promotion of Greek products and strengthening their credibility.
“For many years Greece has been discussing its weaknesses rather than its real potential. Today, however, the Greek primary sector proves that it can stand up to the most demanding international markets,” Minister of Rural Development and Food Margaritis Schinas told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
With regard to the “Reverse Agriculture” programme, he stresses that it comes precisely to serve this need. “To bring production closer to technology, innovation and international markets. To give young producers and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular the opportunity to gain access to knowledge, networks and opportunities that until a few years ago seemed distant,”
According to him, extroversion is not only a matter of exports, but also a matter of self-confidence for the country and its production model. As he concludes, “for us it is the decision to believe more in quality, in identity and in the people of Greek production. And this is exactly what we are trying to do through ‘Reverse Agriculture’.”
At the core of the plan is the creation of a single administrative platform for the management of exports, the establishment of registers of export and import companies, as well as the development of business intelligence tools that will allow the analysis of data by country and product.
At the same time, through the “Greek Farms” portal, an attempt is being made to create a digital showcase of Greek Mediterranean agri-food abroad. A platform through which Greek products can be presented in a more structured way to the markets of the world.
The digital services that directly connect the producer with the market have a special place in the programme. Each producer will have his/her own digital tab, and the creation of the mobile app “i-Agric 2.0”, a “smart” application aimed at both agricultural production and citizens, is also planned.
A key tool of the project is the “Greek Farms Badge”, a kind of digital certification that will be awarded not only to producers, but also to traders, caterers, hotels and food professionals, if they use or promote Greek products. The aim is to create a wider network of Greek agri-food identity, starting from the field and extending to the plate and tourism.
At the same time, the programme attempts to move the primary sector into an environment of more systematic digital traceability and control. Through the new system, “digital controls of the localisation of agricultural products” and “farm to fork” systems will be implemented, based on the interconnection of production, import, export, sales and tax data through MyData.
In the same context, dynamic risk analysis models, seasonal and targeted controls, as well as the creation of “production-disposal balances by VAT” are envisaged. In this way, discrepancies between declared production and actual commercial activity can be identified, so that localisation and opaque movements become much more difficult.
Finally, part of this new digital picture is the so-called “360° View Farmer’s Card”. It will bring together data on payments, facilities, production, livestock, training and product movement. This is essentially a single digital representation of farming activity, which attempts to bring together information that has so far been scattered in different registers and services.
