Towards a toolkit for socio-technical process modelling in agriculture: a pilot study

Digital technologies are transforming agriculture, affecting social, institutional, economic, environmental, and technological dimensions. To ensure sustainable development, it is essential to anticipate these impacts and create conditions for sustainable change. Living Labs (LLs) concept facilitates this by involving various stakeholders in co-designing solutions. This paper presents a socio-technical process modelling method using Model-driven requirements engineering (MoDRE) techniques. It employs UML class diagrams, iStar diagrams, and BPMN diagrams to model process structures, goals, and flows. The method, part of the Horizon Europe project CODECS, involves data collection, diagram design, and iterative feedback, tested in a precision irrigation pilot study in Tuscany. Preliminary results demonstrate the method's effectiveness in supporting interdisciplinary teams, fostering better communication, and aiding in the analysis of digitalisation impacts on agricultural processes. Furthermore, the discussion with stakeholders allowed the fine-tuning of the models and enriched the method for co-creating the diagrams with a toolkit composed of a set of guidelines for eliciting process-relevant information from LLs, a checklist and a detailed procedure for graphical representation.