Over the past years, a great amount of knowledge on managing practices, technologies, products and recommendations in the primary sector has been developed by several EU funded projects. Despite the continuous flow of information, new or improved managing choices have not been appropriated by practitioners as expected. The main objective of NUTRI-KNOW is to broaden EIP-AGRI Operational Group (OG) outcomes on the thematic of nutrient management across borders to modernise and dynamise the agricultural sector by collecting, translating and sharing easy-to-understand and practice-oriented knowledge. NUTRI-KNOW will assure the appropriate adoption of the OGs results and experience by farmers, practitioners and other relevant end-users. To reach this ambitious goal, NUTRI-KNOW is built considering 12 EIP-AGRI OGs from 4 Member States (Spain, Italy, Belgium and Ireland), ensuring that at least one partner of the consortium has been involved in each OG. The engaged projects cover the whole value chain of nutrient management (livestock farming, storage systems, processing technologies, fertiliser production, transport and application). NUTRI-KNOW methodology is divided in 5 different steps: (1) Data collection and analysis of all the outcomes of the engaged OGs, (2) Multi-approach analysis to establish a solid baseline of the current situation (policies, farming practices, needs and challenges), (3) Consolidation and translation of the knowledge in a language that can be easy to understand for farmers and practitioners, (4) Delivery and transfer of the practice-oriented material created in the communication channels most consulted by farmers and (5) Interconnection of actors and territories with the creation of a Community of Practice. Finally, with all the knowledge gained during NUTRI-KNOW execution, the project will develop a Results Amplification Methodology that will serve as a guideline to upscale and broaden project outcomes effectively in any thematic of interest.

The current European plant-protein landscape is flawed. Heightened societal awareness of the environmental impact of consuming animal-based protein is driving the public’s awareness of alternative, sustainable sources of dietary protein. Yet, production systems are focussed heavily on the production of feedstock for direct transfer into animal sectors in an attempt to counter the EU’s over-dependency on imported feed. In essence, there is an absence of premium supply chains - farmers miss out on added-value opportunities that exist within the crops they already grow across Europe. There is a need to increase resilience in farming systems to mitigate against increasingly volatile climate patterns and to support farming systems to meet Farm-to-Fork strategic objectives. Built on the principles of co-creation, innovation and demonstration, VALPRO Path will design, validate and deliver sustainable and competitive plant protein crop systems and value chains. Focussed on underpinning economic value for all actors in the supply chain, it will exploit beyond state-of-the-art innovations, demonstrating and evaluating potential across 5 multi-stakeholder ‘living lab’ innovation production systems (IPSs). With strong industry involvement, the project will deliver a stronger ecosystem for plant protein production, supported with robust evidence of the social, economic, environmental, climate and health benefits. VALPRO Path will deliver new, sustainable business models, showing how focussed research can come into practice. Sustainable diversification of rotations with grain legumes will support the transition to more environmentally sustainable farming. European agriculture is at a juncture in regards to the sustainable provision of dietary protein. It can embrace opportunities presented through existing innovations that are integrated into real-life scenarios to support stakeholders realise the new market opportunities that exist for indigenous, fully traceable plant protein.

The aim of SUSFOOD2 is to foster research and innovation in the field of sustainable food systems through enhanced cooperation and coordination between EU member and associated states. It will thereby contribute to the overall EU objective of building the European Research Area as well as a newly emerging Food Research Area. Major challenges will influence future food chains asking for innovative solutions to - respond to increased demand for food by increasing production sustainably (Food and Nutrition Security) - make optimal use of resources while mitigating impact on the environment - reducing losses and waste - follow a whole food chain approach from production to consumption - improving competitiveness of the European agri-food-business SUSFOOD2 focusses on sustainability in post-harvest food production, thus covering relevant fields from natural sciences to food engineering and social sciences. Building on the achievements of its predecessor in FP7, SUSFOOD2 Cofund will strengthen efforts to support and fund excellent research in the food area by one co-funded call of around 11.4 Mio. €. The consortium also aims at implementing other additional activities in a three-fold approach: i) strengthening networking and knowledge transfer among various stakeholders (i.e. by workshops, stakeholder events etc.) ii) additional funding activities without EU co-fund (preferably linked with other initiatives) iii) implementation and further advancement of the SUSFOOD SRA (developed in FP7) With the outlined approach SUSFOOD2 will contribute to - maximizing impact of transnational cooperation pooling resources (material and intellectual) and implementing best practice - using synergies and reducing overlap by interacting with related (international) initiatives (especially JPIs HDHL and FACCE) - Promoting the outputs of SUSFOOD2 network and funded projects via targeted dissemination thus sharing common vision and creating awareness for the field of food sustainability.

agroBRIDGES aims to build bridges between producers and consumers, rebalancing farmers market position by empowering them with knowledge about new business and marketing models. The proposal will mobilise local farmers through Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs), focussing on decreasing intermediaries and their margin. Precisely, agroBRIDGES will follow a knowledge-based, holistic, systemic approach built on two pillars: (1) a multi-actor framework pursuing demand-driven innovation; (2) a combination of communication materials, training programs, events organisation and IT tools gathered in the agroBRIDGES Toolbox as the ultimate instrument that will provide practical support to producers, consumers, contracting authorities, distributors, academia, etc, improving farmers position in the value chain. Both regional and pan-European approaches will be considered along with the project, where 12 Beacon regions will be involved in the creation of this multi-actor framework, directly involving ca. 400 people in information collection, knowledge exchange, co-creation, co-development and validation of project outputs. Full EU roll-out, replication and training will be conducted, supported by a strong dissemination campaign and coordination with other EU projects and initiatives as SCAR-AKIS and EIP AGRI through a clustering plan. Main impact in the short term will be ca. 150 persons trained on topics related to food procurement and how to mobilise innovative agri-food supply chains and support local producers, while in the medium-, long-term it is expected a 5-8% increase of farms totally or partially involved in direct sales to consumers and an increase in farmers income for the value of the output ca. 35% average thanks the developed new SFSCs models. This way, agroBRIDGES will make an ambitious contribution to the Common Agricultural Policy unlocking the full potential of Europe’s inner wealth by placing producers as a cornerstone for boosting European agri-food sector.

Grazing-based production systems have the proven potential to produce high quality food, to be beneficial to the competitiveness of farmers and animal welfare, as well as for other ecosystem services and are widely apreciated by the society. However, for many reasons grazing is generally declining in Europe, which is a threat for many ecosystem services. In Grazing4AgroEcology (G4AE), grazing farmers are for the first time at the centre of a thematic network, complementing other thematic networks such as Inno4Grass, EuroDairy, SheepNet, BovINE, HNVLink, etc. in providing solutions for sustainable, integrated grazing-based animal production systems. G4AE has 18 partners including farmers organisations, extension services, education, and research in eight countries (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, & Sweden). The Partner Farm Network of G4AE of 120 Partner farms (15 per country) will enable the capture and implementation of best-practices and innovations to promote grazing for agroecology. Our 3-tier multi-actor approach based on co-creation and knowledge sharing will actively involve all relevant actors of the grazing AKIS including farmers, industry, education, researchers, advisors, society, etc. This will improve the uptake of the innovation capital and significantly contribute to the improvement of the transferability of best practices and innovations and will also enable cross linkage of OGs. G4AE will innovate the grazing sector by strengthening the capacity of farmers to understand more objectively their own agroecological performance through an integrated self-assessment. This will trigger farmers to strive for innovation. G4AE will boost digitalization through webinars, digital interactions, videos and media training. G4AE will provide a rich set of practical hands-on knowledge and training material for a vast community of current and future grazing farmers, available in a Knowledge & Information Management System.