The Role of Digital Skills in the Digital Transformation of Agriculture—Evidence from the European Union

The digital transformation of agriculture is one of the key areas for achieving food security, environmental sustainability, and climate protection goals. Farmers’ digital skills are essential conditions for the successful implementation of digital technologies in the agricultural sector. The objective of the research is to assess the level of digital skills among persons working in agriculture in the European Union and to analyze the correlation between these skills and Internet access in rural areas. The analysis is based on Eurostat data, in particular the Digital Skills Index 2.0 (DSI 2.0), and focuses on EU countries in 2023. The results show that persons aged 16–74 working in agriculture, forestry, or fisheries, remain at a disadvantage in terms of digital skills compared to both rural and urban populations. In 2023, only 31.29% of persons working in agriculture had basic or above-basic digital skills, while the percentage of persons not using the Internet was more than twice as high in this group as in other social groups. Correlation analysis shows that improving Internet access in rural areas is weakly correlated with an increase in higher digital skills among persons working in agriculture, forestry, or fisheries, but shows a strong correlation with a reduction in digital exclusion. The results suggest that the development of digital infrastructure alone is not sufficient to support advanced digital skills in agriculture.