Solutions to address costs and improve accessibility of energy and fertilizer: FERTIBIO, a project with the Sant'Anna School among the main partners, included among the "Inspiration examples" in the EU CAP Network seminar

On Tuesday, December 6th and Wednesday, December 7th, 2022, the seminar organized by 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, titled "Smart circular farming to address high energy and fertiliser prices", takes place in Porto, Portugal. A two-day event with the objective of identifying innovative solutions in response to issues related to energy and fertilizer costs and accessibility and building resilient agriculture and food systems through smart circular economy approaches. The "smart circular economy" is being applied at the agricultural and local level to safeguard food security and address the challenges of climate change.

Among the speakers at the event was Elisa Pellegrino, a researcher in Agronomy and Herbaceous Crops at the Crop Science Research Center of the Sant'Anna School, who was invited to present the results of FERTIBIO (Development of the production process of BIOlogical FERTIlizers and their application in different production sectors of Tuscan agriculture), a project involving the BioLabs laboratory of the Sant'Anna School and included, by the seminar organizers, among the "Inspiration examples" on how to overcome dependence on synthetic fertilizers and fossil energy by using soil microorganisms. FEERTIBIO's main goal is to develop and validate biofertilizers for herbaceous species and vegetables in order to improve soil fertility and reduce the use of mineral fertilizers, while maintaining crop productivity and improving yield quality.

The seminar program includes many talks, including presentations on additional projects, such as Agrofossilfree, Hyperfam, Since-AFC and GO-Grass. Wolfgang Burtscher, director-general of the European Commission's DG Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI), provides the welcome, while the introductory talk on the current crisis and its impact on agriculture is given by Michael Wolf, Research Policy Officer (DG AGRI) unit F.2. This is followed by several working sessions aimed at forming cohesive groups on the issues of circular and green economy, as well as visits to innovative local realities.

The full seminar program is attached.