In the framework of the LIVINGAGRO project, since several months researchers are visiting enterprises in the agroforestry sector in order to:

a) Assess businesses’ specific needs for innovation;

b) Re-orient research toward satisfaction of firms' needs;

c) Assess the possibility of transferring ready-to-use innovations to stakeholders.

A total of 20 visits will be conducted until the end of LIVINGAGRO project in all the partner countries (Italy, Lebanon, Greece and Jordan). Based on a preliminary assessment of the most relevant stakeholders, an action plan was prepared in order to organize this activity.

In view of the next project field visit supposed to take place in Italy, Tuscany Region, on next April 21-22, we hereby propose a brief flashback on the last visit performed in Lebanon last November.

The second field visit in Lebanon was conducted by the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI) team at Darbechtar cooperative in Koura district on November 4th, 2021. Researchers and engineers from LARI, in addition to eight farmers from the region, participated in the visit. The day began at the cooperative, where the participants were informed about the LIVINGAGRO project, its activities and expected results with particular reference to innovation of the Mediterranean agroforestry sector. Additionally, the team highlighted the importance of the B2B events that will be organized in Lebanon and Jordan in the upcoming months and about the opportunity represented by the project ICT platform which is being developed in order to encourage exchange, participation and connection between research and economic stakeholders of the Mediterranean agroforestry sector.

Furthermore, the LARI LIVINGAGRO team assessed the specific needs of innovations of the involved farmers which pertain summarily to the following key issues: improving working conditions of the farmers; improving soil fertility and obtaining good quality of olive and olive oil in order to support  the participants solving their specific problems that were discussed after the presentation such as high production cost mainly due to traditional practices based on high use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, manual harvesting, etc.; soil erosion; poor soil fertility and olive fruit fly. At the end of the open discussion the project team explained that LIVINGAGRO project will transfer ready to use innovations for the interested stakeholders.

In conclusion of the visit the team and the participants visited one of the cooperative olive groves at Darbechtar owned by Charbel Bou Ghosn which represents a project demonstrative site for planting innovative legumes-based mixtures. Finally, the field visit participants shared interesting opinions about the olive and olive oil sector in Lebanon and had the chance to improve their knowledge regarding the agroforestry and the living labs concepts addressing the main challenges affecting the sector.

In the next news: discover more on the activities and expected outcomes of the upcoming Italian field visit taking place in Tuscany, Maremma region!