Our Ploutos project announces the official launch of its Sustainable Innovation Pilots!

The project has reached the 2^nd year and is now officially deploying its Sustainable Innovation Pilots throughout Europe.

Ploutos Horizon 2020 Project  

NEUROPUBLIC participates in the Ploutos EU funded project that aims to re-balance value chains, in order to enhance win-win outcomes for different actors involved, such as farmers, cooperatives, agri-food companies, technology providers, SMEs and others. Combining behaviour innovation, collaborative business model innovation and data driven technological services, Ploutos will increase transparency, information flow and management capacity.

The result will be more competitive, efficient, resilient and sustainable agri-food value chains with improved performance and positive socio-economic and environmental impacts.

All innovations of Ploutos are combined in its Sustainable Framework, which will be assessed and adjusted through the Ploutos Sustainable Innovation Pilots. All of them are currently being launched across Europe, including in Greece, the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain, North Macedonia, Serbia, Cyprus, Slovenia, Italy and France.

Apart from geographic coverage, Ploutos pilots also cover a large range of agri-food ecosystems, including arable horticulture, greenhouses, perennials, livestock and dairy production.

The Support of a Frozen Fruit Value Chain Consisting of Small Farmers | Greece

One of the pilots that are deployed within the context of Ploutos will support the frozen fruit value chain consisting of Proodos, a Farmers’ Union with smallholder farmers, and Alterra, a food processing company, for optimizing production, reducing environmental footprint and re-using data for certification and subsidies.

The farmers of Proodos, like the majority of fruit producers in Greece, face sustainability problems, as they have small and fragmented farms in different microclimate zones and face high inputs costs, lack of resources for investments and lack of financing. They need ways to increase their revenues, reduce production costs at an environmental friendly way.

The solution to these challenges will be addressed with a mixture of technological, social, entrepreneurial and institutional innovations.

A gaiasense telemetric agro-environmental station installed in a peach orchard of “Proodos” Farmers’ Union.

Firstly, a Smart Farming solution, gaiasense, will be established in the area of Proodos, helping the farmers to reduce the application of inputs (water, fertilisers, pesticides), thus reducing costs, improving the fruit quality, while reducing the smaller environmental footprint of the production.

Furthermore, connecting the gaiasense and the systems of Alterra with the Ploutos traceability solution that will help in collecting all the needed data/proof to secure certification and sustainability related labels.

In addition, measuring the additional value created by the new collaboration between the two value chain links (Proodos and Alterra) that enabled securing the certificates and labels based on the collected and shared data, and proposing a fair redistribution among them. Finally, an extra benefit will be that the farmers can use the collected data as a secondary evidence in the context of the new monitoring and traffic lights system of the Future CAP.

Finally, it is worth noting that some of the key measurable outcomes that are expected to be achieved with the completion of the project are the following:

• reduction of pesticide use by 15%;
• reduction of water consumption by 25% and
• reduction of production costs by 18.6%.

Enhancing the sustainability performance of wine producers | Cyprus

One of the pilots that are deployed within the context of Ploutos will help farmers and wineries to move towards sustainability (environmental, economic, social) and add value to their products through a digital labelling solution.

Although the wine industry is considered lucrative, small wine grapes producers and wineries face sustainability problems, no matter how good their products are. They need ways to increase their efficiency, reduce costs and get better prices to match their good sustainability practices applied.

The solution to these challenges will be addressed with a mixture of technological, social, entrepreneurial and institutional innovations.

Firstly, a wine grapes production support mechanism will be established, combining (1) a human component comprising the researchers of the Agricultural Research Institute and the agronomists of Oenou Yi winery, and (2) the gaiasense holistic Smart Farming solution which will be applied in the vineyards of Oenou Yi. This will help farmers to minimize the application of fertilizers and pesticides, thus reducing the production costs, improving the fruit quality (less chemical residuals) and reducing the environmental footprint of the production.

Furthermore, the systems of Oenou Yi and gaiasense Smart Farming solution will be connected with the Ploutos traceability solution to feed the collected data to a digital labelling solution that will promote the related product quality and sustainability information to the consumers. A mechanism will be designed for replicability and scaling-up across Cyprus with the help of the Agricultural Research Institute.

Sustaining Ploutos Innovation

The results of the pilots will be available through the Ploutos Innovation Academy, after the lifetime of the project. The Academy will make available the know-how and best practices acquired from the implementation of the pilots to interested parties that will be able to replicate them easily.

Become part of Ploutos

The launch of the Pilots lays the foundation for exchanging and applying innovative practices, in order to establish a sustainable agri-food sector. Follow all the evolvements of Ploutos through our website and social channels that are being updated on a regular basis or subscribe to our newsletter and be part of the Ploutos discussion!

You can be the first to adopt the innovations of tomorrow!

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