The “French Agritech”
Highlights of the Paris International Agricultural Show
The last Paris International Agricultural Show was held from the 26th of February to the 6th of March 2022. 
The event is the annual meeting place for all the key players of the agricultural world. It gathers all actors of the agricultural sector: local farmers of course, but also research and technical institutes, universities, solution providers, ministries and French regions, professional organizations and agricultural syndicates. The show is organized around the main sectors of agriculture: livestock, crop and plants, vegetable, products from French regions and its overseas territories.[1]
For a couple of years, a new space in the exhibition is dedicated to the Agri-food Tech sector. This year was marked by a significant event: the French Minister of Agriculture Julien de Normandie and the Secretary of State of numeric transition Cedric O officially launched the “French AgriTech” dynamic.
What is the “French AgriTech”?
It is a French national dynamic to promote the development of agrifood technologies, particularly startups. This dynamic is composed of a report which summarizes the French state of the art of the Agrifood Tech sector in France, an agenda and a road map for the development of the sector in the upcoming 8 years. The roadmap is composed of 6 axes:
1 – Support the development of the potential of an Agritech startup
2 – Provide funding sources capable of ensuring leader development
3 – Adapt the legislative frame for innovation
4 – Have more talents trained in the numeric and innovation sector
5 – Accelerate the transfer of research results & transfer knowledge to the private sector startup
6 – Activate the levers of solution development towards farmers to acculturate, experiment and massificate them
What opportunities for the Agri-food Tech?
The “French Agritech” dynamic aims to structure and reinforce innovative actors as well as facilitate the deployment of their solutions. The government intends to pursue this objective by dedicating 2.3 billion euros to it.
Already 200 million have been released through two open calls in order to support startups and food tech companies with the French fourth “Future Investment program” (PIA4).
How did the participation in SmartAgriHubs help this dynamic?
The participation of ACTA and Pays de la Loire Region to the SmartAgriHubs project helped to write a state of the art of French AgriTech. Indeed, both entities shared their experience and knowledge about the AgriTech sector across Europe and France. The work conducted within SmartAgriHubs also helped with the identification of active stakeholders within the project’s ecosystem, which allowed the French RC to connect them to the leaders of the French AgriTech report writer.
More information in French, here.
[1] https://en.salon-agriculture.com/
