On-farm Renewable Energy Systems (RES) can provide agrarian communities with an extra source of stable income, while guaranteeing long term clean energy supply for society. Despite their enormous potential for RES, in practice many farmers are not capable of accessing the financial, technical and administrative resources required for installing RES capacity on their farms. This is caused by RES investments generally being restricted to project finance for large installations while RES types that can be installed on farms require bank loans. This limitation greatly restricts capital supply while raising overall cost. Most farms in the targeted countries have a low credit profile that disqualifies them for loans. To overcome this limitation and fully take advantage of the last few years´ cost reductions and performance advancements in RES, a tailored investment instrument is needed that can attract capital from capital markets and especially from institutional investors to on-farm RES. The recent appearance of innovative investment schemes, addressed to overcome similar challenges in other sectors, demonstrates that, by creating pools of RES, access to capital market resources can be realized. The proposed action is designed to initiate a structured dialogue among farmers, financiers and other relevant experts and stakeholders in order to develop and promote such an investment instrument, tailored for on-farm RES. The consortium that presents this proposal includes, among other key stakeholders, a leading European financial institution, a university as well as the largest farmers´ associations of Spain, Italy and Greece. The quality of the consortium and the relevance of the expected results mean that this proposal is a unique opportunity to increase the financeability of on-farm RES in Europe.

Livestock farming is a key sector that involves 40 % of the total agricultural activity in Europe. representing a total value for products equal to 170 billion. However, there is an increasing concern due to livestock farmings contribution to environmental pollution since it generates more than 1.4 billion tonnes/year of manure leading to significant greenhouse gases (GHG) and air pollutants emissions(NH3, NOX)as well as to soil and water contamination caused by hazardous manure chemicals and biological contaminants (called here emerging contaminants). In this context extensive effort has been carried out for years to assess the detrimental effects of farming systems and to develop abatement methods to be implemented. However, despite major advancements, many fundamental issues are beyond the scope of existing legislation. The main objective of NUTRITIVE is to develop a decision-making tool (DSS, decision support system) able to define the most efficient and sustainable (in its three pillars: environmental, economic, and social) manure management strategies for a given livestock farm limiting manure air emissions as well as soil and water contaminants. This will allow for the formulation of technical guidelines and recommendations that will support policy makers with enhanced knowledge to establish requirements for future European policies. To fulfill this objective, the project is divided into six work packages (WP): WP1 Up-to-date inventory; WP2 Novel management strategies/technologies investigation; WP3 Modelling and LCA; and WP4 Guidelines formulation; WP5 Communication, dissemination, and exploitation; WP6 Management. NUTRITIVE anticipates a wide spread of the project outcomes, with the synthesis of the consortium as a baseline: 22 partners (4 Chinese) from 8 different countries across Europe, covering 6 climatic regions (2 Chinese ones), representing the whole supply chain experts, from animal feed to soil application.

BIOVEXO demonstrates a set of new and innovative biopesticides targeting the plant-pathogenic Xylella bacterium and its transmitting spittlebug vector, to fight a disease that seriously threatens olive and almond production in the European Mediterranean region. BIOVEXO’s biopesticides will reduce the input of chemical insecticides and will sustainably increase and secure European olive cultivation in its valuable socio-economic context. The biopesticides will be tested for use in curative and preventive approaches. We introduce six promising candidate biocontrol solutions acting either against Xylella or its vector, which include two bacterial strains, a microbial metabolite, two plant extracts, and an entomopathogenic fungus. Following small-scale on-field validation and improved formulation, BIOVEXO will upscale production of best-performing biopesticides (minimum two Xylella- and two vector-targeting ones) to large pilot scale for real-life evaluation in two major Xylella outbreak regions in Europe (Apulia, Italy and Mallorca, Spain) representing distinct pedoclimatic conditions. Then, BIOVEXO’s biopesticides will be demonstrated in a combined and integrated approach (IPM) on traditional and newly planted olive orchards in the two areas. Additional testing is done on almond trees in mainland Spain and Mallorca. The BIOVEXO consortium coming from academia, large industry, SMEs and associations contributes complementary expertise all along the value chain including practical knowledge and hands-on experience by participating olive growers and farmer associations. BIOVEXO will provide a mechanistic understanding of the biopesticides’ mode of action to support final product development and will ensure environmental and economic sustainability by performing LCA and risk, toxicity, and pathogenicity analyses. Thorough evaluation regarding regulatory compliance will prepare BIOVEXO’s biopesticides for smooth market entry post project.

uP_running project aims to set the path for the development of the bioenergy utilisation of agrarian pruning and plantation removal (APPR) wood obtained from vineyards, olive groves and fruit tree plantations. uP_running vocation is the abatement of the current immobilism of the value chain actors for the utilization of APPR woody biomass. For that purpose uP_running incorporates a set of straight actions aimed to reshape the sectors perception, to provide evidences of real success and replicable models to follow, as well as to promote the take-off for the utilisation of APPR biomass residues. An intense communication campaign will address the varied target audience with tailored messages and materials to raise the awareness. An impact on policy barriers and on the legal framework currently setting limits for the utilisation of APPR wood will be carried out through direct advocacy and lobbying work at national and EU level. Once the awareness is raised and the sector is released of hindering barriers, a snowball effect will be triggered through multiplicative and dissemination actions. First part of uP_running multiplicative strategy is to create a permanent capacity in Europe, by empowering national and regional agrarian associations, extension services and/or private consultants with capacities to give support for decision making to farmers, cooperatives and agro-industries owing the APPR residues. A call for entrepreneurship will put into operation the newly created capacities in 7 EU countries to promote the decision making of pioneer entrepreneurs. Setting up and running new APPR biomass value chains is the key for a self-replication and to further contribute to the development of the bio-economy in Europe. The actions will be initiated in a set of 4 “demo” countries (that together account for 50% of EU potential), replicated in 3 relevant EU countries, and extended through precursor actions to 7 additional EU countries.

RECOVER is a disruptive RIA proposal built upon the actual needs to solve the contamination of agro-fields with non-biodegradable agro-plastics as well as to improve municipal waste handling by decreasing drastically the packaging fraction going to unsustainable waste management routes. We intend to reach our ambitious objectives applying biotech solutions that will include symbiotic bioprocesses between previously reported high powered microorganisms through microbiotic systems vectored by several insect species. Indeed, one of the main innovations in our proposal is the combination of endogenous and exogenous microorganisms and their inoculation on insects. This will allow achieving higher levels of biodegradation and direct conversion (at the same time) of agri-food plastic wastes in insect by-products such as chitin, that can be converted in chitosan (high value as bioplastics raw materials and other interesting industrial applications due to anti-microbial activity) that will be used in active packaging, enhanced mulching films and biofertilizers applications. RECOVER will help providing novel biotechnological solutions applying microorganisms, enzymes and insects to degrade conventional plastic packaging and agricultural films waste streams but also result in new feedstocks for the bio-based industries. The process will be optimized and performed either ex-situ in composting reactors (preferred route for non-recyclable plastics from municipal solid waste or for agricultural films that can be collected easily) or in-situ in the case of bioremediating soil pollution, by e.g. mulching films, further contributing to the long-term removal of non-biodegradable polymers from the environment. In addition, RECOVER can solve the microplastics pollution at the level of both industrial composting and soil.