In January 2019, the Horizon 2020 project ‘LIAISON‘ launched a Europe-wide contest to seek out innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking initiatives in farming, forestry and the agri-food supply chain.

A total of 220 businesses, projects and initiatives participated in the contest from 21 EU Member States and from 2 neighboring countries. An international jury of independent professional experts has just selected 15 of them as European Rural Innovation Ambassadors who represent various groups in different sectors and geographic areas.

The Rural Innovation Ambassador selected for Italy is Milano Porta Verde.

Each of the selected Ambassadors will receive international recognition as well as a chance to benefit from numerous networking opportunities. All Ambassadors will be received at the European Rural Innovation Contest Award Ceremony taking place on 3 December 2019 in Brussels during the annual Organic Innovation Days event organised by TP Organics.

Prof Gianluca Brunori from Pisa University, the LIAISON project partner in Italy, explained why identifying such innovative initiatives in the EU is important:

“Times are changing! Across Europe the agricultural, forestry and the agri‐food sectors are facing major social, economic and environmental challenges, as well as great new opportunities. 

Rural innovation is currently one of the hottest topics of discussion from farmhouse kitchen tables to the European Commission offices in Brussels. We therefore strived to find as many good examples of rural innovation as we could in order to promote their hard work and good ideas. We were especially interested in finding partnerships that bring together diverse expertise from people and organisations with different backgrounds.”

For more information about the project, check out the project website.

For additional information on the European Rural Innovation Contest (EURIC), please contact:

Prof Gianluca Brunori gianluca.brunori@unipi.it

Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-Environmental Sciences, University of Pisa

Gabriela Molina galmy07@hotmail.com

Department of Agricultural, Food and Agri-Environmental Sciences, University of Pisa