Assessing the future uptake of digital tools and technologies by sheep and goat farmers in the meat and dairy industries

Sm@RT, an EU Horizon 2020 funded project, aims to improve the understanding, awareness and uptake of digital tools and technologies available to small ruminant farmers. To assess factors influencing the rate and peak level of
uptake, stakeholder groups in the 8 Sm@RT countries (Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Norway, UK) used the Adoption and Diffusions Outcome Prediction Tool (ADOPT) (https://adopt.csiro.au/home.aspx). Questions were in 4 categories; characteristics of the tool/technology; characteristics of the farming population; advantage of using the tool/technology; and learnability. To date, sessions have been completed on 20 different tools/technologies presented by the project as possible solutions to needs identified previously. For example, predicted rate and peak level of uptake for an EID stick reader (across 4 different countries) ranged from 9-24 years and 72-97% of the population. Overall results indicate that answers given relating to what proportion of the population will need new skills/knowledge, and the proportion of farms that could benefit from the tool/technology, are influential in terms of rate and peak level of uptake respectively.