Effectiveness Assessment of Investments in Robotic Biological Plant Protection

Evaluation of the effectiveness of digital technologies adoption is relevant in all areas of activity, including agriculture. The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of investments in robotic technologies for biological plant protection in greenhouse enterprises. This article proposes a decision-making algorithm for evaluating the effectiveness of investments in robotic technology projects for biological plant protection based on a financial model, which is supplemented by the technical and economic parameters of digital technologies. Testing of the model on the example of a Russian enterprise showed that the project pays off in two years, while the profitability of the enterprise grows by increasing the yield and boosting the sales of environmentally friendly products in the context of replacing chemical plant protection with biological methods. The main assessed risk factors for the project are a decrease in revenue, an increase in overall costs of the greenhouse, and an increase in the cost of digital technology development and implementation. Sensitivity of the project to personnel recruitment and requalification issues appeared to be very low. The study contributes to the development of methods for economic assessment of the effectiveness of digital technologies in agriculture. In addition, it shows in a specific case that for transitional and low-income countries (in this case Russia), implementation of the high technologies may result in higher relative operational expenses