The agricultural sector is currently facing increasingly complex global challenges — from resource scarcity to climate change — that demand innovative and sustainable solutions. At the same time, the growing interest in medicinal and aromatic plants, along with consumers’ increasing attention to the quality and origin of raw materials, makes it necessary to strengthen systems for monitoring, controlling, and enhancing agricultural supply chains.
Technologies such as IoT sensors, Artificial Intelligence, and blockchain offer new tools to improve monitoring, traceability, and transparency, overcoming the limitations of traditional models.
In this context, TRACE was conceived as a plan aimed at developing an advanced methodology to ensure product quality, authenticity, and traceability, making the entire supply chain more efficient, secure, and competitive.
The general objectives of the TRACE project are to develop a new organizational model for supply chain management aimed at ensuring full compliance with minimum product quality specifications, environmental sustainability of the production process, and the effective and secure transfer of essential information to the final customer.
The specific objectives include:
- enhancing digital tools for supply chain management, including platforms and unified interfaces for data storage and consultation;
- improving agronomic management through sustainable production guidelines, precision agriculture, and advanced traceability systems;
- developing a quality management system based on IoT sensors, data analysis with AI algorithms, and long-range communication technologies such as LoRaWAN;
- integrating a critical subset of data within a blockchain, ensuring their immutability over time;
- evaluating the economic and environmental benefits introduced by the innovation;
- strengthening supply chain relationships through the standardization of shared data flows.
The project, with a duration of thirty months, is structured into the following activities:
Action A1 – Cooperation Management:
Management and organization of project activities, assessment of potential critical issues and identification of solutions, periodic meetings of the scientific and management committees.
Action B1 – Studies Required for the Implementation of the Plan:
Feasibility study concerning the analysis of the context and the topics addressed in the project proposal.
Action B2 – Specific Actions Related to the Implementation of the Plan:
Improvement of the organizational and production model through IoT technologies. In the production fields of the farms participating in the Operational Group, sensors and weather stations will be installed to collect data and develop Artificial Intelligence algorithms to predict product quality.
Action B3 – Specific Actions Related to the Implementation of the Plan:
Improvement of the quality of medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) production through controlled elicitation. Several elicitors (e.g., salicylic acid, chitosan) will be tested in full-field trials to enhance the production of active compounds by MAPs (passionflower, cardoon, artichoke, and lemon balm).
Action B4 – Specific Actions Related to the Implementation of the Plan:
Processing of the results obtained and assessment of the environmental sustainability of the good agricultural practices identified following the adoption of the process innovation.
Action B5 – Dissemination:
The dissemination plan includes activities such as guided visits to experimental fields, strengthening of the EIP network through connections with other projects on related topics, creation of a web space, a video accessible also to hearing-impaired users, informational materials (brochures and podcasts), and the organization of lessons, workshops, and practical social inclusion activities.
Action B6 – Training:
Knowledge developed within the project activities will be transferred through training initiatives aimed at providing basic skills in the application of sustainable and technologically advanced agriculture within the MAP supply chain, with potential extension to other production chains.
The expected results of the TRACE plan are:
- Strengthening the sustainability of the MAP supply chain by improving interactions among producers, systematizing procedures and activities, and ensuring their long-term stability;
- Adoption of precision agriculture tools (weather stations and soil moisture sensors) and real-time monitoring systems (e.g., wireless IoT sensors);
- Implementation of digitalization tools across the supply chain to simplify traceability operations (e.g., through blockchain) and support automated data analysis processes (e.g., through artificial intelligence);
- Enhancement, through training activities, of the skills of agricultural enterprises in the use of advanced digital and technological tools (portal, Decision Support Systems – DSS, precision agriculture instruments), sustainable production management, low-impact cultivation techniques, and sustainability and traceability certification processes.