Elias Maritan

BSc (Hons), MSc

Research Associate

Elias Maritan holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Geography from Queen Mary, University of London and a MSc in Agricultural Sciences 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. His research uses multi-criteria linear programming methods to analyse economic, environmental, and social implications of innovative agricultural technologies.

His first peer-reviewed publication focused on economic thresholds of farmer supervision of crop robots. This study was part of the project entitled “Development of a UK Crop Robot Code of Practice” coordinated by the Centre for Effective Innovation in Agriculture (CEIA) and funded by the Elizabeth Creak Trust. This publication supported the development of the BS 8646:2023 standard "Use of autonomous mobile machinery in agriculture and horticulture. Code of practice" (https://standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/projects/2022-00272#/section).

Elias is currently involved in the Digitalisation for Agroecology project (D4AgEcol | https://d4agecol.eu/) co-funded by Innovate UK and the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. The objective of D4AgEcol is to provide knowledge for the European transition to agroecological farming. D4AgEcol will show the potentials of digitalisation as an enabler for agroecological farming systems based on available knowledge and actors and stakeholders' co-innovation capacity. Partners from seven countries across a wide spectrum of pedoclimatic zones in Europe will assemble a holistic evaluation of digital tools and technologies. This will be based on the UN FAO's 10 elements of agroecology, economic assessments and stakeholders' investigations about perceived drivers and barriers to technology adoption.

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

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)
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

D4AgEcol - Digitalisation for Agri-Ecology - Researcher
Economics of swarm robotics in UK agriculture - Researcher

Elias Maritan

Research Associate

Professional Memberships

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