bioconfarm will use a holistic approach in which all stakeholders along the entire value chain of agriculture and plant production will be considered, especially the farmers, SMEs, cooperatives and scientists. The bioconfarm consortium will establish an international “living” network of experts and stakeholders in the field of alternative plant protection and plant strengthening research & innovation, paving the way to reduce the application of chemical and synthetic pesticide products in agriculture and forestry. The bioconfarm thematic network focuses on the topic of smart plant protection research findings and innovation fulfilling the needs of farmers and plant breeders. bioconfarm will apply a user-centred approach (the bioconfarm living farm labs), which will act as a kind of open-innovation ecosystem, operating in a territorial context (certain region) and integrates concurrent research and innovation results and processes. A sustainable and long-lasting network of living farm labs will be established and take-up of research findings by farmers increased. Knowledge exchange in rural areas is mainly based on physical meetings and direct relationship between people and can be organized in a way that facilitates the mutual learning process. For example, demonstration farms are an effective means for knowledge exchange as farmers and researchers directly meet each other and build long-term relationships. The living farm lab approach of bioconfarm applies a multi-actor approach in order to integrate all relevant actors and stakeholders along the several value chains concerning plant health in agriculture. bioconfarm structure consists of five comprehensive and inter-related Work Packages with key outputs as deliverables, as well as major milestones plotted along the workplan. bioconfarm comprises 13 project partners (11 main beneficiaries, 1 affiliated entity and 1 associated partner) representing expertises in agriculture, plant protection, biocontrol, digital tools, producers, farms, cluster and cooperatives.

The Conveyor System market and, in particular, robot segment for the automated material handling are experiencing double-digit growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR). EU manufacturers in this sector plays an important role, covering 23% of the market but this technological edge is being challenged due to the astonishing growth of China, Japan and Korea. In real world, many objects to be handled, including food, clothes, bottles, or plastic items, are soft or deformable and robots are not yet efficient and effective in handling these objects. In this context, AGILEHAND aims at developing advanced technologies for grading, handling and packaging autonomously soft and deformable products, as a strategic instrument to improve flexibility, agility and reconfigurability of production and logistic systems of the European manufacturing companies. AGILEHAND will deploy 3 integrated Suites: 1) SMART SENSING SUITE, self-calibrating sensing solutions to grade the quality (both interior and exterior) of delicate objects and to produce a mesh of integrated and overlapping sensors that will improve production-line traceability, agility and reconfigurability; 2) SELF-ADAPTIVE HANDLING, SORTING AND PACKAGING SUITE, robotic manipulation systems that reacts to product quality and that can Pick-Up and Re-Orientated Different Soft and Deformable Products without causing product damage considering collaborative (human-in-the-middle) approaches; 3) AGILE, FLEXIBLE AND RAPID RECONFIGURABLE SUITE, a set of AI based solutions that will allow for monitoring, adaptive control and synchronisation of production and logistics flows in a factory, even when faced with a variability of products, production mix or fresh market, guaranteeing high performance in customer response time, and an efficient use of resources. The AGILEHAND Solutions will be demonstrated in 4 industrial pilots that differ in characteristics of the surface, deformability, and consistency of the products to be handle.

The main objective of GoodBerry is to provide the necessary knowledge and procedures to facilitate the development of highly productive and top quality berry fruits, even under multiple suboptimal growth conditions, at a competitive cost. The project is based on an integrative multi-actor approach, from cultivation techniques to molecular studies, aiming the development and validation of a range of tools to improve competitiveness of European berry production, and eventually the attraction and confidence of consumers. The selection of the model species can be considered as strategic since strawberry is the most important berry crop in Europe and the production of raspberry and blackcurrant are increasing strongly in recent years. The project will apply the most recent technical advances in: a) The identification of berry germplasm exhibiting advantageous balance of production vs nutritional quality throughout the EU, b) The search of innovative production systems to maintain high yield in a range of European-wide environments, c) The development of standardized and reliable analytical tools to evaluate berry production and fruit quality. As result, it is expected: a) the implementation of modern breeding strategies to accelerate the release of new berry cultivars; b) The adoption by EU-growers of high quality production systems to improve fruit quality. The proposal establishes as obligatory to disseminate and communicate the results to the scientific community, industry, the broad public and interested stakeholders user. The final impact will be to consolidate the emerging needs of high-quality berries, and to boost consumer and market confidence supported by an improved competitiveness of producers. It is a multidisciplinary, collaborative project based on complementary expertise and skills of internationally recognized berry research institutions, and highly involved key berry SMEs that will combine their effort to secure the robustness of the results.

The main objective of BreedingValue is to provide the knowledge and tools to utilize strawberry, raspberry and blueberry GenRes and pre-breeding material for the creation of new breeding possibilities. The achievements are directed to create European cultivars with resilience to different and changing climatic conditions, as well as adaptability to different cultivation systems. Equally important, achievements targeted at producing consumer-desirable fresh-fruit cultivars of berries with high nutritional quality. With this aim the most interesting GenRes available in different EU public and private GenRes collections and breeding programs can be identified and used for the project. The BreedingValue platform will be developed and validated by using strawberry, raspberry and blueberry, being the most important in EU berry industry, known by its high economic impact and potential. This project will apply the most recent technical advances: a) to identify conserved and maintained germplasm of the main genera appropriate for sustainable berry production throughout the EU; b) to apply new and advanced genotyping and phenotyping tools for the characterization of local races and varieties, breeding populations and pre-breeding material; c) to identify the genetic base of the most important resilience traits and fruit quality traits for selecting new cultivars with increased adaptability to different and changing climatic conditions and cultivation systems; d) to develop studies on EU consumers preference; e) to apply Life Cycle Analyses to evaluate the ecological benefits derived by the application of resilient pre-breeding material and varieties; f) to generate a novel efficient data analyses strategy; g) to develop prototype visualization tools; and h) to disseminate and communicate the results to breeders, GenRes managers, researchers , growers, market organizations, consumers, food industries, health authorities and regulatory and legislative authorities.