3F GREEN MODEL Project meeting in Oviedo

1. Főoldal
2. News
3. 3F GREEN MODEL Project meeting in Oviedo

The new Interreg Europe project 3F green models met in Ovideo Spain to share good practices for circular agriculture and forestry to promote employment among EU regions in June 2023. Titled ‘Future Food & Forestry models towards the Value Chain Adaptation to the Green Deal and Circular Economy’ or ‘3F Green Model’ for short, the project aims to foster the transition to a circular economy in rural areas, where agriculture and forestry are key sectors for economic development and environmental sustainability.

Representatives for 5 partners from 5 regions met in person for the first Study visit to Asturias in June 2023 where the project will begin identifying and analysing good practices in these areas and support their transfer and adaptation to different regional contexts involving relevant stakeholders from public authorities, research institutions, civil society organisations, and private sector actors. The five partners are:

1. Principality of Asturias, Spain (project lead)
2. Vidzeme Planning Region, Latvia
3. Department of Agriculture of Sicilian Region, Italy
4. Pannon Business Network Association, and associated partner city of Szombathely, Hungary.
5. Munster Technological University’s Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence and associated partner the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Marine, Ireland.

Of the project's 5 areas of interest the study visits and thematic workshops of this visit focused on the management and utilisation of livestock waste.
 

The visit included visiting two biogas and waste treatment facilities and several workshops from local partner organisations.  The first visit was to Biogastur associated with the Central Lechera Asturiana which treats dairy livestock manure, straw, and dairy washing effluent from approximately 80 farms in the region.

Biogastur operators discussed the challenges of

• adapting to challenging discharge limits
• certifying the biomethane for grid injecting and the need to burn onsite without it which is less efficient
• Lack of grants for existing facilities (in comparison to new facilities.
• Permitting is required to send digestate outside of Asturias (regulatory alignment issues between regions in Spain).

The second on-site visit was to COGERSA which collects and treats the municipal waste of 78 local Asturian councils and converts the waste into value including generating 36 giga watt hours of electricity a year. The team at COGERSA outlined for example the challenge and techniques applied for removing contamination in compost material arriving at their facility.

We also heard presentations regarding the biogas plant in Sicily from Giancarlo Roccuzzo regarding their own biogas plant dealing with citrus fruit waste and also one of the focus of our 3^rd study visit in May 2024.

Related presentations were also held from the relevant research organisations in Asturias such as SERIDA (Regional agri-food Research and Development Service) which included discussions of:

• Geographic Information Systems databases for mapping and understanding regional biomass availability.

Finally, our Latvian partners presented the challenges and opportunities in the region of Vidzeme, in particular in the area of forestry products in the context of their Vision 2030 strategy document. This and related topics will be the focus of 3F’s next partner visit in October 2023 in Vidzeme.