On last December 13th, 2022, the first Brokerage event to foster innovation in Multifunctional Olive Systems was held in Amman, Jordan, by the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) and the Regional Forest Agency for Land and Environment of Sardinia (Fo.Re.S.T.A.S.) in collaboration with the whole LIVINGAGRO Consortium in order to highlight and present state-of-the-art innovations identified by the project in response to challenges which economic stakeholders of the Mediterranean agroforestry sector are facing, responding to needs such as increase of profitability, sustainability of production and biodiversity protection considering limited resources and environmental constraints.  

After the opening and welcome speeches by Dr. Salam Ayoub, Director of the Horticulture Research Directorate at NARC, and Maurizio Malloci, General DIrector at Fo.Re.S.T.A.S. as well s some introductory presentations by Sara Maltoni of the Technical Service of the General Direction at Fo.Re.S.T.A.S., speakers and innovators from Greece, Italy, Lebanon and Jordan shared their experiences at the presence of more than 50 participants who joined the event from different parts of Jordan representing private (70%) and public (30%) entities. All participants, researchers (29%), representatives of cooperatives/farmers (21%) and multiple stakeholders in private companies/consultants (50%), had the opportunity to share their points of view, considerations and questions concerning proposed and presented contents focusing on innovations targeted to economic operators and stakeholders of the Mediterranean olive and olive oil sector.

In terms of contents, the Brokerage event addressed the topic of Agroforestry in the Mediterranean context with a presentation by Dr. Peter Moubarak of the Lebanese Agricultural Research Center (LARI) in Lebanon and explored several protagonist innovations including the chickpea intercropping practice in olive groves presented by Prof. Anastasia Pantera from the Agricultural University of Athens in Greece; a research on the effect of soil management and different cover crops on soil characteristics, olive production and olive oil characteristics held by Dr. Milad El-Riachy from the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI) in Lebanon; the innovation concerning DNA-based authentication of the varietal origin of monovarietal olive oils by Dr. Panagiotis Kalaitzis from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH) in Greece; the use of KASP technology for the assessment of genetic diversity in olive by Dr. Mazen Kilani from the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) in Jordan and the exploitation of the blockchain technology for traceability of olive oil introduced by Mr. Abdelrahman Habashneh, Founder of Decapolis company based in Jordan.

The event continued in the afternoon when one-to-one meetings and a round table with the event speakers was organized in order to facilitate and promote an open discussion between speakers and organizing entities with the event participants.

All presented innovations can be further explored in the dedicated Catalogue of innovations available on the project website (EN and AR) and on the project ICT platform (EN and AR).

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