UCD AI agricultural project secures €6.5m to drive safer, more sustainable farming

(opens in a new window)A Horizon Europe-backed UCD project is leveraging advanced robotics, AI, and augmented reality (AR) to modernise agriculture, combat labour shortages, and prioritise worker safety.

Awarded €6.5m to support its aims of making farm work safer, smarter, and more attractive, especially for women, young people and workers with disabilities, (opens in a new window)AGROBOOST hopes to reduce workplace accidents by 30%, while demonstrating an increase in the inclusivity of those choosing farming as a career.

(opens in a new window)Dr Dimitrios Argyropoulos, from the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, leads the multi-disciplinary European project spread across 18 partners in Europe.

“AGROBOOST embraces a methodology rooted in scientific excellence, social inclusivity, and measurable impact, prioritising the safety and appeal of agricultural work by harnessing robotics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, automation and digitalisation while simultaneously aiming for significant reductions in workplace accidents, environmental footprint, and production costs,” he said, highlighting the project’s holistic approach.

It will seek to directly address highly challenging agricultural tasks through six pilot campaigns. These include:

• Mushroom selective harvesting (Ireland) using fully autonomous, vision-guided robots
• Intelligent Autonomous Robotic System for Harvesting of Strawberry Crops (UK) utilising a gamified Virtual Reality (VR) environment for training and telepresence
• Orchard tree pruning and flower thinning (Portugal) leveraging AI-based robotic systems
• Mechanical Autonomous Selective Weeding (Greece) in organic vegetable farming
• Autonomous Management of Poultry Production, Health and Welfare (Belgium) using combined fixed and mobile robotic platforms
• Automated Work on the Ground in Steep Vineyards (Switzerland), exploring lightweight, morphing compliant robots to reduce human intervention in challenging terrain

_{Petros Kokkalis, Co-founder of Climatica; Dr Kate Johnston, UCD’s Head of Strategic Research Partnerships; Mark Sweeney, National Contact Point for Horizon Europe Cluster 6 and Climate Adaptation Mission, Enterprise Ireland, and Dr Dimitrios Argyropoulos, AGROBOOST Project Coordinator and UCD Principal Investigator}

Another part of the project is €480,000 in financial support to integrate external innovation from third parties such as SMEs, startups, and research groups through two open funding calls, providing up to €60,000 for each of the planned eight recipients.

Speaking at the launch of the AGROBOOST project at UCD, Petros Kokkalis, former Member of the European Parliament and climate policy leader, noted its alignment with the European Green Deal, adding that its objective was “ not to replace farmers. The goal is to empower them.”

Other speakers included Mark Sweeney, National Contact Point (NCP) for Horizon Europe environment activities at Enterprise Ireland, and Dr Kate Johnston, UCD’s Head of Strategic Research Partnerships.

AGROBOOST is funded under the Horizon Europe Programme and is supported by €5 million in EU funding alongside Swiss contributions.

By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations