August 7th – The EU project CLIMED-FRUIT (Adaptation to climate change and mitigation for perennial crops in Mediterranean Area) aims to collect information on the solutions developed all around Europe to increase resilience to climate change by major perennial crops in Southern Europe, like grapes, olives, citrus, avocado, stone fruits, nuts and others.
This information will be transformed into digital easy-to-use documents that will be widely disseminated to farmers and advisors all around Europe.
EIP-AGRI Operational Groups and other EU-funded projects are considered a valued source of technological solutions, and a widespread collection of these contributions is planned starting next fall. Furthermore, right now technology provider companies are able to propose their solutions already in the market by participating in a specific crowd-writing contest.
Crowd-writing
A crowd-writing contest is promoted amongst suppliers of products, equipment, processes and services for perennial crops in Mediterranean areas. The beginning of 12 stories, each describing a farming situation and its main needs, is available on the web. All suppliers are invited to add their “happy ending” to these stories, thanks to the adoption of the respective innovative technologies. Each story end (corresponding to an agricultural practice) will be completed by an Extended Practice Abstract and a short descriptive video. The best stories – chosen by the project consortium members – will be inserted in the project documents, and the contacts of the author enterprises will be promoted.
If you are an agriculture provider, you can see the half stories and how to participate in the contest by following this link.
The project
The Mediterranean region is the European area with the strongest impact of climate change on agriculture: increasing extreme heat events, droughts, biodiversity loss, water demand…
Perennial fruit crops (e.g., grapevine, olive, citrus, avocado, cherries …) represent an important land area of this region and are currently facing climate change. Farmers are changing or adapting their practices accordingly, but some of these practices are not managing to cross territorial borders or remain limited to a specific agricultural sector.
The EU-funded CLIMED-FRUIT project aims to share this new expertise, collected from different operational groups across Europe, for better climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The project builds on the results of a core group of nine OGs coordinated by multi-actor consortium members (advisors, farmer organisations, research and education institutes, and organisations for standardisation), covering several Mediterranean crops in seven different countries (France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Serbia).
Best practices are collected and shared, ranging from
(i) soil conservation and carbon storage,
(ii) improving the resilience of crops facing climatic hazards (frost, hail),
(iii) innovative practices for adapting water stress management,
(iv) adaption of food chain processes to climate change and diversification, and
(v) preserving biodiversity for better resilience to climate change issues and pests.
These groups will share their experience through a combination of innovative digital formats, cross-visits and interactive local dissemination events. In addition, new knowledge and practices will be gathered more widely by involving other OGs.
More information on the project can be found on its website.
Project Partners
9 partners are involved in the Climed-Fruit project, spreaded all around the Mediterranean: IFV (French wine and Vine Institute) in France, VINIDEA and CIHEAM-IAMB (Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari) in Italy, SEASN (South-eastern Europe Advisory Service Network) in Croatia, IPN (Institute for Science Application in Agriculture) in Serbia, AVA-ASAJA (Valencian Farmers Association) and UNE (Spanish Association for Standardization) in Spain, HMU (Hellenic Mediterranean University) in Greece, and APPITAD (Association of Producers in Integrated Protection of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro) in Portugal.
For further information please refer to each partner-specific website.
Operational Groups
The nine partners of CLIMED-FRUIT project are:
- OFIVO, Optimization of ferti-irrigation on Occitan vineyards
- GASCOGN’INNOV, Redesign of vineyard systems for biological quality improvement and soil conservation
- VIRECLI, Precision Viticulture for vegetative-productive balance, soil protection and adaptation to climate change in vineyards
- INTAVIEBIO, Technical and Agronomical Innovation in Organic Viticulture
- GO CITRICS, Citrus Irrigation and Fertilisation Precision Farming
- GO AVOCADO, Avocado productivity improvement in Spain
- NEW PRACTICES IN RAINFED OLIVE GROVES, Climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies
- OLTREBIO, Innovative Management of Organic Cherry Growing and Organic Table Viticulture
- CARBOCERT, Carbon increasing capture practices and improving soils in Mediterranean crops
Social Networks
The CLIMED-FRUIT project social accounts are:
