FS 3.217: Advancements in Mountain Agriculture

Agriculture in mountain areas is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and socio-economic transformations. Many mountain communities face significant challenges in maintaining their integrity, grappling with issues such as aging and depopulation, labor shortages, abandonment of infrastructure, and neglected cultivated lands, with natural reforestation as visible consequence. To counteract these trends, policymakers and society are striving to revitalize small, peripheral communities by creating incentives to live and work in these regions. Agriculture plays a crucial role in these efforts. Our panel will address precisely these issues from a perspective of innovative agricultural engineering and discuss economic niche production, mechanization and digitalization in mountain farming. Agricultural machinery must be specially designed or retrofitted for mountain areas to ensure labor safety. Rollover accidents claim lives every year. Entry into the production of niche products is directly dependent on the availability of safe machinery that can be used to supply alternative value chains. The panel will discuss a range of experiences and findings related to these topics, including but not limited to: 1. Agricultural niche production and alternative value chains in mountain regions. 2. Stability of agricultural machinery on sloped terrains. 3. Mechanization and digitization of machinery for mountain agriculture. 4. Retrofitting options for agricultural machinery for effective use in mountainous regions.