GEOSPATIAL
AGRITECH
Business LAB
Hosted by BioSense Institute, in cooperation with IAMO
Why the Geospatial AgriTech Business Lab?
Satellite data, drones, IoT systems and in-field sensors can already tell us much more about crops, soils, water and weather than was possible only a few years ago. The challenge is not whether the technology exists, but how to make it useful, accessible and commercially viable in real farming conditions.
This is particularly relevant for the Western Balkans, where agriculture is economically important and employs a large share of the rural population, climate pressures are increasing, but the uptake of advanced digital solutions remains uneven.
The Geospatial AgriTech Business Lab is designed as a meeting point between those who develop technology, those who use it, and those who can help create the conditions for wider adoption.
The three-day event will bring together up to 100 participants from Germany and the Western Balkans, including technology companies and start-ups, farmers and agribusinesses, researchers, advisory services, public authorities and international organisations.
What Will Happen in Novi Sad?
The programme will combine high-level discussions, technology showcases, practical sessions, demonstrations, roundtables and fishbowl discussions. The emphasis will be on exchange and interaction: exploring what technologies are available, identifying the challenges users actually need to address, understanding the barriers to adoption, and identifying opportunities for new cooperation.
The technical programme will cover three closely connected areas:
Satellite and Earth Observation
Drones
Proximal and in-situ sensing and IoT
Alongside the technology itself, the discussions will address the practical questions that determine whether solutions are actually taken up: technology cost&benefits, data access and interoperability, integration of tools and services, skills, support and market needs.
Why take part?
For companies and technology providers in particular, the Business Lab is intended to provide a better understanding of where solutions could be applied, adapted or further developed in the Western Balkans, including user expectations and barriers to adoption. For farmers and agribusinesses, it provides access to emerging technologies and direct contact with their developers. For research organisations, it creates space for new industry cooperation; for public and international organisations, it provides direct contact with both the technology supply side and the agricultural users these technologies are expected to serve.
Speakers
- National Technical Officer
- Belgrade Project Office
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Climate data and geospatial tools are essential for evidence-based adaptation planning, spatial development and resilient investment. To address the needs of the Western Balkans, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) developed the Western Balkans Climate Adaptation Platform (WB-CAP), providing accessible, consistent, and high-resolution climate information. Since its regional launch in October 2025, the platform has been enhanced with 1 km observational data for 2001–2020, bias-adjusted climate projections based on more than 40 EURO-CORDEX models, an improved downscaling tool, and updated indicators, maps and time series. The presentation will introduce the platform and explore how climate information can support climate risk screening, adaptation planning, spatial development, and investment decisions, helping public institutions, researchers and other stakeholders translate climate science into practical solutions for a more resilient Western Balkans.
- Group Lead, Remote Sensing for Agriculture (RSA)
- Research Area 4 “Simulation & Data Science”
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF)
As the global population grows, agriculture must meet rising food demand while facing droughts, heat waves, pests, and diseases that threaten productivity and demand proactive adaptation.The Earth Observation based Digital Twin for Resilient Agriculture under Multiple Stressors (EOAgriTwin), developed within ESA’s Digital Twin Earth initiative, provides a virtual representation of agricultural systems to track crop conditions and productivity under these stressors. EOAgriTwin integrates multi-source data from Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, climate reanalysis, IoT sensors, and field observations. Data-driven and process-based models deliver information on drought and heat stress, field-level water use, crop condition at high resolution, vegetation disease risk, and future yield scenarios, and enable “what-if” assessments of alternative management strategies. Co-developed with stakeholders in Germany, Italy and Kenya, EOAgriTwin shows how multiple data sources, models and transparent uncertainty information can move Earth observation from monitoring towards decision support.
- LPIS/IACS and Geospatial Data for Agricultural Policy
- Independent Expert
The Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) is the geospatial backbone of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) and links every area-based CAP payment to a measurable, verifiable piece of land. For EU candidate countries, setting up a compliant LPIS is a prerequisite for CAP implementation, and a chance to build it on modern geospatial technologies from the start. The presentation introduces the key concepts behind a robust LPIS: stable reference parcels based on physical blocks, eligibility rules and the Maximum Eligible Area, and the difference between LPIS and the cadastre. Drawing on recent LPIS establishment and quality-control work in several candidate countries, it highlights recurring challenges: aligning national land definitions, especially for permanent grassland, with EU rules, clarifying the roles of ministries, paying agencies and cadastre authorities, and building quality control into the system from day one. Finally, it shows how AI-based parcel delineation on very high-resolution imagery detects field boundaries with high accuracy but matches regulatory reference parcels only moderately. AI can therefore speed up LPIS creation significantly, but only within a human-in-the-loop workflow anchored in EU rules.
Panel
As the global population grows, agriculture must meet rising food demand while facing droughts, heat waves, pests, and diseases that threaten productivity and demand proactive adaptation.The Earth Observation based Digital Twin for Resilient Agriculture under Multiple Stressors (EOAgriTwin), developed within ESA’s Digital Twin Earth initiative, provides a virtual representation of agricultural systems to track crop conditions and productivity under these stressors. EOAgriTwin integrates multi-source data from Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3, climate reanalysis, IoT sensors, and field observations. Data-driven and process-based models deliver information on drought and heat stress, field-level water use, crop condition at high resolution, vegetation disease risk, and future yield scenarios, and enable “what-if” assessments of alternative management strategies. Co-developed with stakeholders in Germany, Italy and Kenya, EOAgriTwin shows how multiple data sources, models and transparent uncertainty information can move Earth observation from monitoring towards decision support.
If you have any questions or need further information about the conference, feel free to reach out. We’re here to assist you and ensure you have all the necessary details to participate. Your feedback and inquiries are important to us.
Get in Touch
Or reach out to us directly at geobizlab@biosense.rs
Why the Geospatial AgriTech Business Lab?
Satellite data, drones, IoT systems and in-field sensors can already tell us much more about crops, soils, water and weather than was possible only a few years ago. The challenge is increasingly not whether the technology exists, but how to make it useful, accessible and commercially viable in real farming conditions.
Conference AGENDA
DAY 01
Opening Keynote:
Shaping the future of the industry