Advancing AI in Europe’s Agri-Food sector

AI is already reshaping agricultural production in several key areas and holds the potential to revolutionise how food is produced, with benefits for the environment, climate and people. It enhances precision farming, supports robots and other machines used for field work. AI-driven advisory tools offer farmers recommendations tailored to their specific needs, interests, and production objectives. 

Despite this potential, adoption across European farms remains limited. Many precision farming applications do not reach the market because high-quality data and commonly agreed formats are missing, and because platforms often remain closed or tied to a single vendor, preventing interoperability. Farmers face practical barriers, including lack of time and skills, mistrust of AI, uncertainty about liability and concerns about losing control over decision-making. Compared to other regions, this slows down the uptake of AI-based solutions in the European agri-food sector. 

A dedicated push under the Apply AI Strategy 

To strengthen AI uptake in agri-food, the Commission is launching targeted measures that support development, trust and practical deployment. 

• A central initiative is the creation of an Agri-food AI platform, planned for Q1 2027. This platform will make it easier to discover and integrate specialised AI-enabled tools and applications, increase trust among farmers using AI-supported solutions and promote open-source. 
• Capacity building for agriculture-specific foundation models such as large language models designed for farming needs will be funded as of Q1 2026. 
• Enhanced support for accelerating the authorisation of new regulated products through AI, thereby helping to maintain the competitiveness of European food business operators, will be provided as of Q4 2025. 

Building the foundations for AI-powered agriculture 

Through these actions, the Apply AI Strategy aims to unlock practical, trusted and domain-specific innovation in the agri-food sector. By supporting the availability of tailored AI-tools, AI model development and trustworthy deployment, Europe can turn emerging technological potential into handy means that work for farmers, food producers, and the wider agri-food ecosystem.