LIFE AgRemSO3il Stakeholders Platform

What is the AGREMSOIL Stakeholder Platform?

The stakeholder platform has the main aim of providing advice and recommendations to the consortium about the project strategy based in their knowledge of soil remediation. It was foreseen to be formed by a maximum of 8 members, representing farm business, policy makers and public bodies, as well as researchers and other fields of expertise.

The role of the stakeholder platform is thus to be project strategic advisor through meetings and informal communications, either in person or on-line, either all together or in smaller groups. The first meeting had the main aim to explain the project, and the following ones were devoted to a project follow-up. It was foreseen a final one where to present the final results and promote a participatory debate on farm soil pollution and how to break down barriers to boost the implementation of emerging technologies such as AGREMSOIL.

The stakeholder platform had three approaches: technical, commercial and legal.

The objective of the platform is to contribute to the technical development of AGREMSOIL technology. This approach served as a technical advisory board on the development of the AGREMSOIL solution with special interest on removing technical barriers and propose uses not considered under the scope of AGREMSOIL project.
The commercial approach of the stakeholder platform provided information and tools for the promotion and awareness regarding the project results and future uses of the AGREMSOIL system, e.g., interest, needs and requirements of farmers to implement this novel remediation technology.
The inclusion of an expert on legal issues facilitated the development of the “governance actions” aimed at making the relevant authorities in the EU aware of the availability of new solutions for soil decontamination, demonstrated through the implementation of our project.

Members

	Company/Entity	Person involved
1	BONDUELLE	Responsible for vegetable crops
2	SURINVER	Responsible for vegetable crops
3	FRUCA	Responsible for vegetable crops
4	CDTA El Mirador	Responsible for experimental farm
5	Servicio Sanidad Vegetal CARM	Head of the Service
6	Expo Águilas	Cooperative technician
7	Expo Águilas	Field technician
8	Expo Águilas	Demo farm owner
9	Expo Águilas	Cooperative manager
10	CIFEA Torre Pacheco	Director
11	CIFEA Lorca	Director
12	Ayuntamiento de Águilas	Concejal Agricultura, Pesca, Pedanías, Zonas verdes y Mercado
13	Ayuntamiento de Águilas	Concejal de Turismo, Educación Ambiental, Comercio, Industria y Plazas de Abastos
14	Servicio Transferencia Tecnológica y Formación CARM	Head of the Service

Activities

Video conference meeting
Visit to the demo-farm
New project proposal with Surinver
Communication and dissemination events:
- EIP AGRI Healthy Soils 13-14 April 2021 On-line event
- EAIC webinar: The LIFE Programme: What are the benefits for companies?
- Participation in PestNu workshop
- Organisation of the webinar Ozone and its use in agriculture
- EU Soil Observatory (EUSO) leaded by the JRC
- Conference “Innovations to reduce and remediate farm soil pollution” (final project event in Brussels)
- Final meeting

LIFE Agremso3il - Preparation works of solarization/ozonation phase

AGREMSOIL's soil treatment system will be put in practice in one of the FRUCA farms in July

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ILIFE-AgRemSO3il_attendance-Ozone-webinar-03

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Conclusions

Strengths (favorable internal factors)

Demonstrated powerful effect of the AGREMSOIL system for soil remediation (~60%).

Partnership’s know-how. The partnership has available research and development options for further studies of the technology.

Good adaptation to environments protected from weather events as wind (greenhouse, net).

The AGREMSOIL system does not essentially modify the activity of micro-organisms.

The AGREMSOIL system did not produce any notable differences with regard to the physiology and yield of the tomato plants.

Good economic and environmental performance of the application of AGREMSOIL to conversion from conventional to organic production or a process of land use change (abandonment of agricultural use).

Weaknesses (unfavorable internal factors)

Intermediate compounds in the pollutants’ degradation process should be further studied.

The AGREMSOIL system has still to be scaled up for larger surfaces. It is developed to TRL7 (Demonstration system operating in operational environment at pre-commercial scale), as foreseen in the project proposal.

The AGREMSOIL system has still to be adapted for outdoor application.

Opportunities (favorable external factors)

Concern of international administrations on soil contamination by pesticides

Local stakeholders widely consider soil pollution a relevant environmental problem with economic and commercial implications

Local stakeholders widely consider soil remediation a necessity as well as the availability of soil decontamination techniques

Local stakeholders, in special those who are the potential final users, find the AGREMSOIL system a useful solution.

Stakeholders consider the commercial orientation of the AGREMSOIL system towards organic farming to be of interest to prevent the occurrence of pesticides in these agricultural products.

More economically efficient if implemented as a service to be provided by a third party with a transportable facility, or if a facility were shared between several farms, preferably portable.

Public funding availability (e.g., CAP Operational Funds).

Local stakeholders do not believe that the use of ozone for soil decontamination should be completely banned.

Stakeholders, and in particular technical field staff, are in favour of further investigating the effects of ozone applied to agricultural soils, promoting the legal authorisation of the use of the AGREMSOIL system, and developing it for its rapid availability.

Threats (unfavorable external factors)

Ozone is not included in any list of fertilisers nor phytosanitary products allowed for their use in agriculture, nor as a basic substance.

There is a legal gap concerning farm soil remediation technologies.

The legislation on conversion from conventional to organic production does not foresee any shortening of time periods by the application of any technology

All stakeholders are aware of the problem of soil contamination by the use of plant protection products and the need for a solution, but most of farmers are reluctant to abandon the use of agrochemicals.

Its use involves a new cost added to their current production costs.

The application procedure for the approval of the specific use of ozone in AGREMSOIL is a long and expensive process.

The market has a lack of maturity as farmers do not have the obligation to decontaminate pesticide residues in their soils.

AGREMSOIL’s soil treatment system will be put in practice in one of the FRUCA farms in July

On April 1st, 2022, Novedades Agricolas y IMIDA visited the AgremSoil…

5 April, 2022/by Marina IDConsortium