Title

A thematic network to design the penetration PAth of Non-food Agricultural Crops into European

Agriculture - PANACEA

Programme

Horizon 2020 Call: H2020-RUR-2016-2017 (Rural Renaissance – Fostering innovation and business opportunities) Topic: RUR-10-2016-2017 Type of action: CSA

Grant agreement

 No. 773501

Grant agreement

European Community

Contract

Duration

36 months

Periodo

 November 2017 - November 2020

Link web

 www.panacea-h2020.eu

 Planned activities

PANACEA aims to set up a thematic network to foster the effective exchange between research, industry and the farming community so that direct applicable solutions are widely disseminated and grassroots-level needs and innovative ideas thoroughly captured in order to design the penetration path of NFC into European agriculture. To achieve this goal, an inventory of long-term scientific results on the NFC sustainable production will be created building on the profound experience of the consortium, and the NFC close to implementation will be identified (WP1).

Combining the farmers’ and bio-based industries’ needs and interests (WP2) with the NFC ready-to-practice potential the role of NFC in the rural renaissance will be analysed. A strong and interactive multi-actor forum will be established with actors from science, industry and agricultural practice to facilitate capturing and spreading of innovative ideas (WP3). Practice-oriented knowledge on specific value chains easily accessible and available in the long term will be assured through training courses and relevant educational material (WP4). Knowledge sharing on technical, economic and environmental aspects of NFC, extensive communication and networking, matching between the supply and demand sides will be facilitated by the PANACEA Platform (WP5). The project findings will be disseminated at large following an extended exploitation and dissemination plan that will be active during the project and beyond and ensure the sustainability of the ‘Thematic Network on Non-food Crops’ through its link with EU wide initiatives, the EIP-AGRI and its Operational Groups (WP6).

CREA will participate actively at all the project activities, contributing with a huge knowledge related to the mechanized harvesting and logistics of the NFC. In particular, it will carry out training courses for agronomists and farmers, articulated in a classroom day and a demonstration day. Moreover, CREA will organize two Workshops for operators, farmers and industries, where success stories will be presented and Business to Business meetings (B2B) organized in order to match the crop production chains with the relevant markets