EIT Food, Foodvalley and FIH Europe launch €3 million Navarra 360º regenerative agriculture initiative

23 Jul 2024 --- The Navarra 360º project will grant 80 farmers in Navarre, northern Spain, a €3 million (US$3.3 million) investment from EIT Food, Foodvalley and Food Innovation Hub (FIH) Europe to support their crop rotation system. The project aims to boost sustainable practices in the Spanish province.

“The landscape approach in the Navarre region will support farmers toward regenerative agriculture implementation. It will assess the impact of regenerative practices on carbon, soil, biodiversity, water, social and economic indicators over the course of three years,” Melissa Comellas, regional program manager of Navarra 360º, tells Nutrition Insight.

“The Navarra 360º project is part of the Regenerative Innovation portfolio, an ecosystem collaboration, established as a Food Innovation Hub Europe Initiative of the World Economic Forum,” she continues. “The project will be delivered by EIT Food and Foodvalley NL. EIT Food will act as the overall coordinator of the project, while FoodValley NL will support the implementation as well as the dissemination of the results.”

The aim of the project is to reduce the use of phytosanitary products by 20% and mineral fertilization by 49%, and it will be carried out by 2026. The implementation is expected to inform the design and delivery of further landscape projects in other parts of Europe.

The aim of the project is to reduce the use of phytosanitary products by 20% and mineral fertilization by 49%, and it will be carried out by 2026. Project implementation 
Highlighting the key goals of the project, Comellas states: “For each category, indicators have been set up together with farmers to ensure data collection is efficient and consistent.”

“Depending on the type of indicator, the frequency of its collection may vary. The project is designed to avoid double entry of data and will make sure data gathering is compliant with CAP requirements as well as with individual reporting for industries and partners.” 

She asserts that farmers are the basis of the project.

“Their involvement is the key to everything. Each activity has been designed with them, with a participative process, to help them in their transition, and is aligned with the values we want to transmit.”

“To quantify the impact of implementing regenerative farming on farmers' wellbeing, social indicators have been developed in collaboration with farmers. These indicators will be measured annually through surveys. Satisfaction scores will allow farmers to identify the aspects of the transition to regenerative agriculture that they find most dissatisfying, facilitating community-led actions which can improve wellbeing.”

Begoña Pérez Villarreal, director for EIT Food South, the Brussels, Belgium-based food innovation hub, says: “When this project came about over a year ago, it was essential to convince the most pioneering companies in this field to work together because together we can make more progress than individually. We know of no other similar initiative in Europe that involves public-private collaboration. We are grateful to Danone, Cargill and Intermalta, as well as the Government of Navarre, for their involvement in bringing this to life.”

EIT Food is the general coordinator for the project, utilizing its experience in training more than 2,000 farmers in nine European countries since 2020 and delivered more than 30 workshops a year for professionals in the sector.

Regenerative practices to improve nutrition 
Marieke Harteveld, program manager at FIH Europe, argues that creating sustainable future food systems requires multiple innovations that range from new ways of farming to new ways of financing or processing. 

“At the basis of these innovations are pioneers with the vision and courage to venture into the unknown and create new sustainable solutions. At the FIH Europe, we are proud to support and learn from initiatives like Navarra 360º.”

Detailing the significance of the expected reduction in the use of phytosanitary products and mineral fertilization, Comellas tells us that the prediction of input use reduction has been made based on the initial viability analysis conducted.

“In the feasibility report prepared by EIT Food in 2023, the cropping itineraries of the production area of interest were analyzed, and three hypotheses of regenerative cropping itineraries were established, with different levels of assumed risk and implementation of practices,” she explains.

Phytosanitary products and mineral fertilization is to be replaced by organic fertilizers as well as green manure.“After quantifying the impact from an input usage perspective for each of the proposed scenarios, the average was calculated and we currently predict a 20% reduction in the use of phytosanitary products and a 40% reduction in mineral fertilization, mainly replaced by organic fertilizers as well as green manure.”

FIH Europe sets out to strengthen national and regional innovation ecosystems by convening stakeholders, mobilizing partners and facilitating knowledge exchange at the regional and global levels. It aims to contribute to a strong movement toward sustainable future food systems.

Harteveld states that Navarra 360º is a pilot case that will help enable scalable monitoring and prove the impact of the program. “The Government of Navarra and Caja Rural de Navarra are offering expert support, and Harivenasa, independent farmers, AN Group and others from the agricultural sector are involved. It is exciting to see this cross-value chain collaboration on regenerative agriculture becoming a reality.”

Jolijn Zwart-van Kessel, innovation lead of circular agri-food at the Wageningen, Netherlands-based Foodvalley, adds Foodvalley NL’s Zwart-van Kessel asserts: “These landscape partners collaborate and demonstrate viable pathways in various European ecological and economic settings, showing how we can scale regenerative practices and support farmers in their transition, with the involvement of all value chain parties and beyond.”

“The formation of the consortium and the development of the regional program in the Navarre have already been a valuable learning experience in social innovation.”

By Milana Nikolova