Elias Maritan
BSc (Hons), MScResearch & Innovation 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. 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 0 (1 – 16)
- 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
- D4AgEcol - Digitalisation for Agri-Ecology - Researcher
- Economics of swarm robotics in UK agriculture - Researcher
- Patchy Peat Solutions Project - Researcher