The Agri-Food Network in the Area of Digitalization in Pazardzhik District of Bulgaria

Abstract

After a long transition period when joining the EU, the Bulgarian Agti-food industry faces new challenges. Digitalization is one of the most important. The paper focuses on identifying the existing network of stakeholders involved in the process of digitalization of Agri-food in Pazardzhik district of Bulgaria. The methodology used has been developed for the Regions 4Food project under the INTERREG program. Data has been collected with a questionary in 2019, sent to Academic organizations, Agri-Food companies; IT companies; Non-governmental organizations; Public/State institutions. In total, 34 organizations have responded, and 147 connections have been identified. The collected information has been processed with the Gephi software. Five indicators have been used to determine the importance of an actor in the network - indegree, outdegree, degree, closeness and betweenness centrality. According to the type, the public institutions have the highest degree and weighted degree, indicating their important role in the network. Most of the connections are related to the provision of information. In terms of main activity, the regulatory agencies have the highest degree and weighted degree, followed by the financing organizations. Agri-food companies really use digital technologies in their production process. The academic institutions have not integrated digital technologies into their study programs. The NGOs are small and have limited capacity. All these findings show an existing network of actors involved in the process of digitalization of the Agri-food industry in Pazardzhik district, but the participants are weakly connected. The most prominent among them are the public and the state organizations, indicating the stronger role of the state compared to the market.