The Faculty of Agribiotechnical Sciences and Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Information Technologies in the eastern city of Osijek are enrolling the first class of students for the new Digital Agriculture programme, Vecernji List daily newspaper says in its Saturday edition.

The programme will be taught in English and will include lecturers from abroad. Admissions to the academic year 2021/2022 are open until 11 October and there are still 20 vacancies left. All first-year students will be exempted from tuition fees.

“With this programme, Croatia has an opportunity to position itself as a centre of excellence for digital agriculture,” Zdenko Loncaric, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Agribiotechnical Sciences, was quoted as saying.

“It is important that a programme like this has opened in Slavonia, our most important agricultural region with huge potential for additional development which, unfortunately, has not been sufficiently tapped because of the mass-scale emigration of the population and loss of labour,” he added.

Loncaric said he was confident that the new academic programme could slow the negative demographic trend and help Slavonia regain its place among the most important food producers in the EU.