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.

Starting from current best practices and key success factors observed and analysed in innovative value chains and the state of the art in technological and non-technological approaches, CO-FRESH proposes to develop techniques, tools and insights for the re-design of agri-food value chains. Through collaborative and systemic approaches, the tools and formats will be applied in 7 pilot cases representing diverse fruit and vegetables agri-food value chains (including protein crops for food and feed) across Europe. CO-FRESH will use the Intervention Research approach to study models of collective innovation action within and across organisations. The CO-FRESH consortium brings together key actors from pilot agri-food value chains; actors’ associations (farmers, food producers, cooperatives, consumers); experts in technological (including digital) solutions and non-technological (including social, organizational, and institutional) solutions; as well as experts in environmental, social, economic sustainability, and in consumer’s acceptance. The main objective of CO-FRESH is to (re)design and pilot innovative systemic approaches to agri-food value chains to scale up this innovation at European level. These innovative approaches will improve economic, social and environmental performance/efficiency of these value chains, through smart integration of technological, social, organisational, managerial and institutional innovations; all of which serve to make them more sustainable.

The Pact for Skill roundtable raised several issues the Agrifood secThe Pact for Skill roundtable raised several issues the Agrifood sector is facing and identified potential ways of overcoming them: upskilling and reskilling workers; intersectoral skill transfers; increased attractiveness of the sector to youth; digital transition; partnerships between learning institutions and companies.The I-RESTART project aims at reskilling and upskilling the workforce in the agrifood and veterinary sectors, retrain the employees leaving the heavy industry to hire them in the agrifood sector, and engage some students that want to enter the agrifood labor market, to improve their digital skills and facilitate the transition to the Green Deal initiative.To reach the above-mentioned objectives, I-RESTART will facilitate the inter-sectoral and intergenerational skills transfers through the adoption of an innovative micro-credentials methodology and the work-based learning experiences that will provide inclusive, flexible and engaging work-based patterns with mentors while opening the ecosystem also to external workers.The project, complementing the FIELDS Blueprint on agriculture and forestry, will provide the tools to tackle future challenges with the offering of 10 occupational profiles for a total of 3200 hours of training. In total 16 trainers and 200 trainees will benefit from the pilot training, and 40 students will complete the work-based learning scheme that also includes the advanced entrepreneurial skills.The 29 partners consortium from 11 countries will identify skills needed and gaps, create occupational profiles, detailed curricula, design European strategies and 10 country roadmaps to reflect the country's needs while keeping EU quality standards (ESCO, EQAVET) to address the mobility of learners through Europe.A strong connection will be established with the Pact for Skills initiative, in order to make useful content for the members that will implement the pact.

NoAW : No Agro-Waste. Innovative approaches to turn agricultural waste into ecological and economic assets. Driven by a “near zero-waste” society requirement, the goal of NoAW project is to generate innovative efficient approaches to convert growing agricultural waste issues into eco-efficient bio-based products opportunities with direct benefits for both environment, economy and EU consumer. To achieve this goal, the NoAW concept relies on developing holistic life cycle thinking able to support environmentally responsible R&D innovations on agro-waste conversion at different TRLs, in the light of regional and seasonal specificities, not forgetting risks emerging from circular management of agro-wastes (e.g. contaminants accumulation). By involving all agriculture chain stakeholders in a territorial perspective, the project will: (1) develop innovative eco-design and hybrid assessment tools of circular agro-waste management strategies and address related gap of knowledge and data via extensive exchange through the Knowledge exchange Stakeholders Platform, (2) develop breakthrough knowledge on agro-waste molecular complexity and heterogeneity in order to upgrade the most widespread mature conversion technology (anaerobic digestion) and to synergistically eco-design robust cascading processes to fully convert agro-waste into a set of high added value bio-energy, bio-fertilizers and bio-chemicals and building blocks, able to substitute a significant range of non-renewable equivalents, with favourable air, water and soil impacts and (3) get insights of the complexity of potentially new, cross-sectors, business clusters in order to fast track NoAW strategies toward the field and develop new business concepts and stakeholders platform for cross-chain valorisation of agro-waste on a territorial and seasonal basis.

RestPoll is a highly transdisciplinary project aiming to provide society with tools to reverse wild pollinator declines and to position Europe as a global leader in pollinator restoration. RestPoll will, together with stakeholders ranging from individual land managers to governments, co-design, evaluate, and refine measures and cross-sectoral approaches to restore pollinators and their services. The RestPoll consortium combines the expertise of natural and social scientists, NGOs, businesses, and ministries. Stakeholders along the food value chain will be engaged through newly developed participatory approaches at diverse social, ecological, and political scales. Central to RestPoll is the establishment of a Europe-wide network of pollinator restoration case-study areas and Living Labs (LL), which are unique hubs for experimentation, demonstration, and mutual learning. RestPoll aims to position Europe as a global leader and set the future agenda for pollinator restoration worldwide. The transdisciplinary RestPoll consortium will develop, test, evaluate and refine cross-sectoral pollinator restoration approaches to conserve biodiversity and to benefit nature and society. To restore wild pollinator diversity and their vital pollination services, RestPoll will co-design measures with different stakeholders (ranging from individual land managers to governments) at various spatial scales (field, farm, landscape, European scales), in agricultural landscapes that are dominated by intensively managed crops or grasslands. Our holistic approach, informed by cutting-edge transdisciplinary research, will integrate stakeholders and actors at multiple levels as well as natural and social science disciplines to engage in participatory planning and development of new business models. Learning outcomes will be disseminated by regional to European multi-actor partners and collaborators, which will ensure impact beyond the end of the project.