Agtech Ecosystem of the Republic of Serbia - Analysis of the Economy Needs

Abstract

Agriculture represents the traditional and least digitized industry, both in the Republic of Serbia and in the world. This situation presented an opportunity for the emergence and accelerated development of the AgTech industry, which is currently one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and is among the three most represented in the Serbian startup ecosystem. AgTech is a new generation industrial field that improves agriculture and the food industry, where the use of modern technologies to develop innovations, new business models and processes, as well as digitization and digital transformation of the industry. AgTech refers to hardware, software, business model, new technologies, new technical solutions, which are directed towards the digital space based on data collection, processing and analysis, as well as decision support tools. This paper presents the results of research conducted on a sample of 106 companies from the AgTech ecosystem in the Republic of Serbia during 2023., among which 85.7% of companies developed their innovations in cooperation with scientific institutions. The analysis of the needs of AgTech companies presented in this paper can be very important for the improvement and development of cooperation between the economy and scientific/research organizations in the Republic of Serbia, as well as the acceleration of scientific research and further commercialization of innovations and the successful transfer of technologies in this area.