The Andalusian Institute of Agricultural, Fisheries, Food, and Ecological Production Research and Training (Ifapa) has held in Granada the first meeting of the steering committee of the Digisost.OLI project. This is a nationwide initiative, led by this organization, that will study how to guide the digital transition of olive groves so that the incorporation of new technologies translates into more sustainability, greater competitiveness, and better-designed public policies.
According to a note from the Junta, the meeting took place at the Ifapa Camino de Purchil center and included the participation of the principal investigators from the three subprojects that make up Digisost.OLI, coming from Ifapa, the University of Córdoba, and the University of Granada, along with part of their respective teams.
The Digisost.OLI project will address the digitalization of the olive grove "not only as a technological problem," but also as "a challenge of adoption and the design of public policies in a crop that faces both the pressure of climate change and the demand for new sustainability standards."
The line of work, led by researcher Carlos Parra López and with a horizon until 2030, is structured into three main blocks. The Ifapa subproject, in which researchers Samir Sayadi and Adriana Bertuglia also participate, will focus on governance, the adoption of digital technologies, and the analysis of public policies.
The team from the University of Córdoba, with Pedro Sánchez Zamora and María José de la Haba, will be responsible for the development of digital twins and the application of industry 4.0 to the olive oil sector. In turn, the subproject from the University of Granada, led by Guillermo García García and Antonio Pérez Muñoz, will focus on the evaluation of sustainability throughout the life cycle.
The research groups are completed with specialists from the Complutense University of Madrid, the Madrid Institute of Rural, Agricultural, and Food Research and Development (IMIDRA), and several international experts.
In this context, the Board has detailed that the initiative combines three perspectives that are normally studied separately: a Living Lab in real farms and oil mills, equipped with sensors, digital twins, and 4.0 process control; the environmental, economic, and social evaluation of the life cycle of the digitized olive oil value chain; and the study of the barriers to the adoption of digital technologies, along with the co-design of public policy instruments in collaboration with the administration and the sector itself.
Among the expected results, the research team will develop proposals for an integrated evaluation framework, as well as digitalization guides aimed at olive growers and oil mills, reports on the obstacles to technological adoption, and a white paper on the digital transition of the Andalusian olive grove.
The DIGISOST.OLI project is a research initiative funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the State Agency for Research, and by Feder funds from the European Union within the framework of the 2025 Knowledge Generation Projects call.