8 Andalusian SMEs are among the 18 Spanish that have obtained financing from the European DIVA project to lead technological projects in the agri-food, environmental and forestry sectors, according to Technological Corporation of Andalusia (CTA) and AMETIC. The Andalusian SMEs are Sixphere, Xilbi (Seville), Drone Spain, Rusama Ganadería (Córdoba), Nutrasign (Huelva), Metrica6 (Málaga), Slow Philosophy (Granada) and Hispatec Analytics which is based in Madrid, but is a subsidiary of the Andalusian company Hispatec Agrointeligencia (Almería).

Each company will receive between €10,000 and €25,000 to develop technological projects, such as autonomous drones for agroforestry systems and smart tools based on big data to support decision-making, among others.

The second DIVA call closed in January with 255 proposals submitted by more than 350 European SMEs from all eligible countries: Spain (88), France (87), Italy (28), Portugal (22), Ireland (15) and Greece ( fifteen). Finally, 67 projects have been selected -18 of them led by Spanish SMEs- with a budget of 1.3 million euros.

The objective of the DIVA project is to promote innovation applied to business models in the agri-food, forestry and environmental sectors, through the introduction of technology throughout its entire value chain: from the production of raw materials, through factory processing, up to the transportation, logistics phase and its arrival at the final consumer. It is expected to build a new technological and international value chain that can be demonstrated in real environments.

The DIVA project is funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union (EU) and led by the French Agri-Sud Ouest Innovation cluster, accompanied by a consortium of 9 other expert entities from 6 European countries, including AMETIC and CTA as Spanish partners.