Open topic: Innovating for on-farm post-harvest operations, storage and transformation of crops into food and non-food products

Expected Outcome:

Successful proposals will support the European Green Deal goals for competitive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems objectives, the common agricultural policy, the EU Climate Law, the EU bioeconomy strategy, and the successful implementation of the unfair trading practices directive as well as the EU’s action plan for the development of organic production.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Farmers employ a wide range of innovative solutions to improve post-harvest handling, processing and storage of crops that contribute to environment and climate objectives;
• Farmers improve their position in the value chains and add value to their food and non-food products at farm level and thereby enhance their competitiveness;
• Farmers and SMEs benefit from new business models and increase their opportunities to engage in sustainable food and non-food value chains.

Scope:

Under this topic, proposals should test, develop and pilot innovative solutions to support farmers to improve their position in the value chains, profit from leveraging the use of their agricultural produce and improve financial viabilities. Proposals should improve the climate and environmental performance of the resulting farmer’s activities and businesses. Proposals should also foster new SME-led sustainable business models and increase the opportunities for farmers to benefit from on-farm transformation and/or storage of agricultural outputs for food and/or non-food purposes. If they relate to some of the topics covered by Horizon 2020 Calls ‘Healthy and safe foods and diets for all’ 2016-2017 or/and ‘Empowerment of rural areas, support to policies and rural innovation’ 2018-2020 or/and Horizon Europe calls “Fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food systems from primary production to consumption” 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, the proposals should convincingly explain how they will build on and not duplicate them.

Innovations proposed should have a positive impact on environment as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation. Proposals should demonstrate practical applicability and be tailored to the needs of farmers and adapted to the seasonal character of raw material production.

Successful proposals should assess the impact of the proposed innovations on the overall sustainability (environmental, social, economic) of the farmers and business activities. The climate change mitigation and carbon footprint reduction potential of the proposed innovations should be analysed. Successful proposals should address the requirements from relevant EU regulatory frameworks, including where relevant needs for pre-market authorisation.

Proposals should perform economic cost-benefit analysis of the practical implementation of the innovations developed within the project. Proposals should describe an exploitation pathway tailor-made for the developed innovations through the different necessary steps (e.g. market research, manufacturing, regulatory approvals and licensing, IP management etc.) in order to accelerate exploitation of the results.

Proposed activities must apply the concept of the 'multi-actor approach' and allow for adequate involvement of relevant actors including farmers and SMEs. Proposals should benefit various farming systems/approaches, one of which should be organic farming. Proposals should develop publicly available diverse practice-oriented dissemination materials, e.g., audiovisual materials, brochures, presenting the innovations.

SME participation is expected. Proposals may involve financial support to third parties, particularly for farmers and/or SMEs providing and/or developing, testing, or validating the proposed innovative technologies/solutions. A maximum 30% of EU funding should be allocated to this purpose. Consortia need to define the selection process of third parties, for which financial support may be granted.