The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) and the EU CAP Network Support Facility for Innovation & Knowledge exchange | EIP-AGRI organised a seminar on 6-7 December 2022 in Porto, Portugal to find innovative solutions in response to the accessibility and affordability of energy ⚡ and fertilisers, and to build resilient farming and food systems through smart circular economy approaches at farm and local level to safeguard food security and address climate objectives.
More information about the event
Romain Giannini from Laval Mayenne Technopole and Gilles Beujean from the Association des Chambres d’Agriculture de l’Arc Atlantique attended the event on behalf of the project.
Tuesday 6th December
Morning, This morning was dedicated to getting to know other participants while addressing the main issue due to which everyone was summoned: overcoming the Energy & Fertilizer increasing prices 💶⚡️📈
To do so, our ICaRE4Farms partners attended several workshops on topics like :
- Mainstreaming Existing Solutions 📟📡
- Reducing Energy & Fertilizer uses while ensuring food security & productivity
Afternoon, participants for the EU CAP Network seminar in Porto grasped a huge opportunity to visit Portuguese sites involved in past successful European projects. Our ICaRE4Farms partners travelled to a vineyard which shifted its agricultural productions toward more resilient & environmental-friendly practises, thanks to the application of “greener” fertilizers. Before turning back to the city, the team made a stop near a circular tree plantation while a second half of the participants discovered two different projects.
Those examples illustrate how local commitments can be nurtured via transnational collaborations & EU-funded initiatives; it unveils a genuine European engagement to stimulate solutions against an energy & fertilizers stalemate
Wednesday 7th December
On the morning agenda, participants were invited to introduce & discuss their project relating to energy and/or fertilizers. In this framework, our ICaRE4Farms partners described the project to no less than 22 different European nationalities, distributed between 200+ attendees & diverse agricultural-related jobs (scientists, consultants, farmers… etc).
The rest of the event was then dedicated to both matchmaking & networking sessions :
- these former workshops were addressing several energy-related questions among which were how to enhance local cooperations & foster on-farm sustainability.
- the latter segment of the meeting revolved around getting to know more participants & reflecting upon potential European collaborative projects to propel together; in that sense, several ideas emerged concerning prospects for ICaRE4Farms follow-up initiatives … but only time will tell.
