Research project Cultivation infomation of alternative crops for the bioeconomy

General introduction

The CropExplore for Farmers (CEF) project has produced a useful online database covering more than 200 agricultural crops. It includes the latest agronomic knowledge about them and their various applications. All the information about cultivation characteristics, acreage (in Flanders, Belgium), and marketing opportunities for the various harvestable biomasses is now centralized in one place for professionals. Everything is easily searchable, both for farmers looking for a new crop and for processors looking for specific raw materials. The project also explored valorization pathways for deder (mayonnaise), hemp (hemp tops), and yacon (sugar syrup), with a focus on expanding the acreage for these crops. The project strengthens technical agricultural knowledge about the (very) atypical crops that farmers could grow for existing and new bio-based products (paints, cosmetics, plastics, building materials, etc.). The aim was to inspire and inform about agricultural production, including for non-food processing.

Research approach

The cultivation knowledge of these bio-economy crops has been digitally compiled from many fragmented sources. For three specific crops (deder, yacon, and hemp), a great deal of knowledge and expertise was already available, and this project also aimed at a possible economically viable expansion of acreage in Flanders and at (local) optimization of the (multi-)valorization of the harvested biomass.

Relevance/Valorization

Cropexplore for Farmers is a logical building block in the ambitions of Flanders and Europe to make the economy less dependent on fossil raw materials and to work more with renewable sources. The bioeconomy policy plan launched by the Flemish government in 2021 therefore focuses on innovative collaborations between farmers and industrial processors in the bioeconomy. A professional matchmaker (the B2BE Facilitator) has also been created to respond to individual questions from farmers in the field when they are considering crop diversification towards bioeconomy crops. Until this project, knowledge of bioeconomy crops was highly fragmented.

Financing

VLAIO