AgData: Portugal joins the European push to put data to work for agriculture

European agriculture faces a twofold demand: to produce more while weighing less on the environment, in an increasingly unpredictable climate. At the same time, there has never been so much data to help farmers, from satellite imagery and other EO data to environmental records and readings from sensors on the farms themselves, alongside technologies such as artificial intelligence. This is data that can tell a farmer when and how much to irrigate, flag a pest before it spreads, or measure the toll a drought is taking on a given region.

Yet much of it sits scattered across many hands or locked behind licences, leaving it less within reach than it should be. AgData, the EU Partnership Agriculture of Data, was created to change that. Co-funded by the Horizon Europe programme, it brings together 61 partners from 22 countries to develop data-driven solutions for agriculture.

In Portugal, that partnership has now taken its first step. Its National Mirror Group (NMG) met for the first time on 15 September. The group carries national interests to the European partnership and brings back to Portugal what is learned and decided within the consortium. The NMG raises awareness across the Portuguese farming sector, shares knowledge, and advises the partnership on what matters to Portugal. Within the European partnership, the Portuguese Space Agency and the Foundation for Science and Technology represent Portugal.

The group brings together public administration, research institutes, and farming confederations, from IPMA and the National Institute for Agrarian and Veterinary Research (INIAV) to the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers (CAP), among others, including the Autonomous Region of the Azores. Its members were invited to join by the Portuguese Space Agency and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and the inaugural meeting was hosted by ANI, now the Agency for Research and Innovation (AI2), itself a member of the group. “We wanted a working group that reflected the whole ecosystem, not only those who produce the data, but also those who use it on the ground and those who shape public policy, so that Portuguese agriculture makes real use of the data that already exists,” explains Duarte Cota, the Agency’s representative in the partnership.

The FCT presented the calls to fund transnational projects, with the first expected to begin in early 2027. “AgData’s joint transnational calls are a chance to rally the national scientific and business community around innovative data-based solutions, with a direct impact on the sustainability and resilience of agriculture,” notes Dina Carrilho, the FCT’s representative in the partnership.

More than an exchange of information, the NMG aims to bring industry and the scientific community together to secure what agriculture still needs to make the most of the data already at hand. The aim is to test solutions in real conditions, out in the field, and turn what comes of that into tools that can then be used across Europe.

AgData has a seven-year mandate and a budget of 300 million euros, all in the service of a simple question: how to produce what we eat with fewer resources, lower costs and in a more sustainable way, through the potential of data.