The Spanish scientific team takes stock in Cordoba of the first year’s work in this international initiative that seeks a change in mentality in European agriculture

The change in paradigm in agriculture that the European Diverfarming project poses started one year ago. With the intention of taking stock of these first twelve months of work and to map out ways looking to the near future of the project, the Spanish partners belonging to the South Mediterranean Region hold their first national meeting in the Rectorado of the Universidad de Córdoba on the 17th and 18th April.

Until now, the research team, consisting of 71 researchers in 8 countries led by the professor Raúl Zornoza of the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, has centred its search on the best combinations of crops and management practices for each agricultural zone of the EU. Once these new working practices have been found, Diverfarming looks for the way to set up an application that serves the farmers to adopt these systems in their lands. The objective is to put into practice a community of farmers who adopt this change in mentality in how their land is managed.

To achieve this, the communication strategy managed by the Unidad de Cultura Científica y de la Innovación at the UCO will provide a new twist, as explained by those in charge in the meeting organised by Beatriz Lozano, professor at the UCO and leader of the South Mediterranean Region of Diverfarming. After enabling the communication structure and presenting the project to the general public, actions will be put into practice in this second year in direct contact with the farmers and the agricultural technicians to start on the creation of the proposed communities of farmers.

The fight against the negative effects of intensive agriculture based on monocropping, the improvement in diversity, the search for greater economic stability in the agricultural sector, and the rural development of areas dedicated to agriculture are just some of the objectives that continue to mark the final direction of this project, financed by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission.

These aims have been very much present in valuing the work carried out, as well as in the future measures adopted by the leaders of each line of work that Diverfarming encompasses in this first day of meetings that has been inaugurated by the vicerrector de Innovación, Transferencia y Campus de Excelencia at the UCO, Enrique Quesada. The need for a European project centred on sustainable agriculture and rural development, such as Diverfarming, has also been underlined by Quesada, who stressed the UCO’s participation and its research projection.

Following the first day of the debate, there will be a visit to the olive grove located in Torredelcampo (Jaén) where the combination of the olive grove with other crops in its rows will be studied.

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