Fruit and Vegetable Industry Session N°13

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping how fruit and vegetable (F&V) value chains operate, offering new opportunities to improve productivity, quality control and market responsiveness. From crop monitoring and disease detection to automated sorting, demand forecasting and market intelligence, AI applications are beginning to influence operational efficiency and competitiveness in fresh produce trade. They also support better resource use, reduce post-harvest losses and enable more data-driven decision-making across the value chain.

However, adoption remains uneven, with many producers and SMEs facing constraints related to cost, infrastructure, data access and technical capacity. Beyond these challenges, the growing use of AI also raises important questions around data ownership, access to technology and the risk of widening gaps between well-resourced operators and smaller actors.

This session will explore the role of AI across F&V value chains, highlighting practical use cases, emerging opportunities and key challenges for adoption. It will also examine how stakeholders can move from experimentation to practical application, and how partnerships, capacity building and enabling ecosystems can support more inclusive and effective use of AI.