Dr Elias Maritan
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhDSenior Postdoctoral Research Assistant
Elias Maritan holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geography from Queen Mary, University of London and a MSc in Agricultural Sciences & Technology from the University of Udine, Italy. He is a Research Associate at Harper Adams University working under the supervision of Prof. Karl Behrendt and Prof. James Lowenberg-DeBoer. Elias is an agricultural economist with research experience in agricultural technology adoption, sustainable farming systems, digital agriculture, and economic evaluation of innovations and agricultural policies. His work combines farm-level economic and multi-criteria linear programming modelling, technology adoption assessment, survey/interview methods, and applied policy analysis. Elias is particularly interested in research that supports evidence-based decision-making for sustainable, resilient, and economically viable agricultural systems.
Professional Memberships
Academic Department: Harper Adams Business School
Research: Global Institute for Agri-Tech Economics (GIATE)
Tel: +44 7562 546 835
Research profile: ORCID
Publications
Other publications
- Huang, I., Beacham, A.M., Vickers, L.H., Mu, H., Tremma, O., Maritan, E., Kaczorowska-Dolowy, M. and Monaghan, J.M. (2026) Drivers, barriers and grower perspectives of innovation adoption in the UK Controlled Environment Agriculture sector. Smart Agricultural Technology 13 (101748)
- Maritan, E., Behrendt, K., Morgan, S., Rutter, S.M. and Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. (2026) An economic and environmental analysis of virtual fencing for precision grazing. Journal of Agricultural Economics 77(3) (1018 – 1033)
- Reimand, K., Niedermayr, A., Moroder, A., Bellingrath-Kimura, S., Meyer-Aurich, A., Schwierz, F., Anastasiou, E., Behrendt, K., Fountas, S., Gabriel, A., Gandorfer, M., Landi, A., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Maritan, E., Mumbi, A., Papantonatou, M-Z., Pedersen, S.M., Pesonen, L., Reis Pereira, A., Spykman, O., Timm, S., Vila Verde, C. and Kantelhardt, J. (2026) How stakeholders assess the compatibility of digital technologies and agroecology in Europe. Book of abstract of the 194th EAAE Seminar (10 – 11 September 2026, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Chania, Greece)
- Maritan, E., Anastasiou, E., Psiroukis, V., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Fountas, S. and Behrendt, K. (2025) An agroecological assessment of uncrewed aerial vehicle spraying in Greek viticulture. Smart Agricultural Technology 10 (100837)
- Maritan, E., Anastasiou, E., Psiroukis, V., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Fountas, S. and Behrendt, K. (2025) An agroecological assessment of UAV spraying in Greek viticulture. Precision Agriculture ’25: Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Precision Agriculture (29 June – 03 July 2025, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain)
- Gabriel, A., Meyer-Aurich, A., Schwierz, F., Anastasiou, E., Maritan , E., Moroder, A., Pedersen, S.M. and Pesonen, L. (2025) Innovation-Population-Fit: Anwendung eines qualitativ-quantitativen Adoptionsmodells auf mehrere digitale Technologien und europäischen Regionen. Digitale Infrastrukturen, Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), Gesellschaft für Informatik (24 – 28 February 2025, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany)
- Reimand, K., Niedermayr, A., Meyer-Aurich, A., Schwierz, F., Anastasiou, E., Fountas, S., Maritan, E., Behrendt, K., Gabriel, A., Spykman, O., Gandorfer, M., Pesonen, L., Landi, A., Pedersen, S.M., Pereira Reis, A., Vila Verde, C., Moroder, A.M., Bellingrath-Kimura, S., Aviziotis, Y. and Kantelhardt, J. (2025) Stakeholder perspectives on digitalisation and agroecology in Europe. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Agricultural Economics (18 – 19 September 2025, University of Graz, Graz, Austria)
- Anastasiou, E., Kasimati, A., Papadopoulos, G., Vatsanidou, A., Gemtou, M., Kantelhardt, J., Gabriel, A., Schwierz, F., Matavel, C.E., Meyer-Aurich, A., Maritan, E., Behrent, K., Moroder, A-M., Bellingrath-Kimura, S.D., Pedersen, S.M., Landi. A., Pesonen, L., Rojic, J., Kim, M., Denzer, H. and Fountas, S. (2025) Review and Assessment of Crop Related Digital Tools for Agroecology. Agronomy 15 (11) (2600)
- Maritan, E., Spykman, O., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Gandorfer, M. and Behrendt, K. (2025) An economic, environmental and social analysis of autonomous mechanical weeding in sugar beet farming. Agronomy Journal 117 (6) (e70246)
- Maritan, E., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. and Behrendt, K. (2024) Drivers and Barriers of Digitalisation Adoption to Enable Agroecology. Proceedings of the 7th Symposium on Agri-Tech Economics for Sustainable Futures (28 – 29 September 2024, University of Reading, Reading, UK)
- Meyer-Aurich, A., Schwierz, F., Moroder, A., Kantelhardt, J., Reimand, K., Pedersen, S.M., Landi, A., Behrendt, K., Maritan, E., Gabriel, A., Fountas, S. and Anastasiou, E. (2024) Harmonising agroecology and digitalisation for sustainable European agriculture. Proceedings of the AgEng 2024 – Agricultural engineering challenges in existing and new agroecosystems (1 – 4 July 2024, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece)
- Maritan, E., Behrendt, K. and Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. (2024) A preliminary economic and environmental analysis of virtual fencing for intensive lowland grazing. The 98th Annual Conference of The Agricultural Economics Society (18 – 20 March 2024, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK)
- Maritan, E., Hoffmann, G., Schwierz, F., Rutter, S.M., Meyer-Aurich, A., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. and Behrendt, K. (2024) An economic analysis of bolus-sensor technology for precision dairy cattle management. Proceedings of the AgEng 2024 – Agricultural engineering challenges in existing and new agroecosystems (1 – 4 July 2024, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece)
- Maritan, E., Behrendt, K., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Morgan, S. and Rutter, S.M. (2024) A multi-objective optimisation analysis of virtual fencing in precision grazing. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Precision Agriculture (21 – 24 July 2024, Manhattan Conference Center, Manhattan, Kansas, USA)
- Maritan, E., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. and Behrendt, K. (2023) A multi-objective optimisation analysis of autonomous mechanical weeding in arable farming. Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on Agri-Tech Economics for Sustainable Futures (18 - 19 September 2023, Harper Adams University, Newport, UK)
- Maritan, E., Lowenberg-DeBoer, J., Behrendt, K. and Franklin, K. (2023) Economically optimal farmer supervision of crop robots. Smart Agricultural Technology 3 (100110)
Research projects
- Alternative business models - wetter farming and land management on and around protected lowland raised bogs - Technical Lead
- Assessing the feasibility of using the ADOPT model to support RD&E investment decisions in the UK - Researcher
- ClimAurea: Supporting climate-resilient agriculture across Europe - Co-Investigator
- D4AgEcol - Digitalisation for Agri-Ecology - Researcher
- Economics of swarm robotics in UK agriculture - Researcher
- Patchy Peat Solutions Project - Researcher