Research is essential for smart and sustainable growth in the F&V sector
The international workshop: the “European Conference on Research & Innovation in the fruit and vegetable sector” was held online. This workshop was organized in the framework of the NUTRIMAN project, a thematic Nitrogen and Phosphorus programme that collects knowledge about the applications and practices of recovered biological fertilizers, funded within the Horizon 2020 programme.
The conference opened on the Farm to Fork strategy and the presentation of the new Horizon Europe work programme by Natalia Brzezina from the DG AGRI Research & Innovation unit(B2) .
Then, project coordinator Edward Someus presented NUTRIMAN and the associated platform. It focuses on technologies and products for recycling nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. This platform was specifically designed for farmers, it now contains 81 carefully selected products and technologies that are currently being used by the industry. It is a database that provides a wide range of practical information on ready-to-use bio-sourcing fertilisers. In addition, the platform provides several information documents that can be consulted and downloaded in eight languages (EN, FR, IT, ES; DE, NL, PL, HU). All The information shared will be available until 2031.
The third speaker, Davide Viaggi (project coordinator) introduced the CONSOLE project – “CONtract SOLutions for Effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture and forestry”. Its general objective is to boost innovation by building a Community of Practice and by designing and testing effective cooperation models. It also develops new contractual framework supporting implementation by multiple actors.
The following theme, declared AREFLH President Simona Caselli, “is one of the most important that will be studied and developed in the future”: the sequestration of carbon. It is Professors Valentini and Alberto M. Levi who exposed the topic to the audience. The expertise of Professor Valentini concerns the role of land use changes and forestry in the carbon cycle, biodiversity and bioenergy. As for M. Levi, he applied Tree Talkers (see www.openfields.it for more information on this technology) in his plum orchards. The tool carries out real-time monitoring of the health of trees, also measuring how much CO2 is sequestered.
As a conclusion, Simona Caselli underlined the great opportunity this conference gave to the audience to meet high-level speakers and future-focused issues that are in line with the new programme of Horizon Europe, the F2F strategy and the Green Deal.
