News

PRIMA project SEAFENNEL4MED has started

To celebrate the start of the project a kick-off meeting has been held on 15 JUNE 2022 at the Botanic garden “Selva di Gallignano”, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona (Italy). Coordinated by Italy, with UNIVERSITA’ POLITECNICA DELLE MARCHE, the consortium of partners includes CREA with its Food and Nutrition Research Center (Italy), the UNIVERSITY OF SPLIT and the INSTITUTE FOR ADRIATIC CROPS AND KARST RECLAMATION (Croatia), UNIVERSITÉ DE BRETAGNE OCCIDENTALE (France), INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE EN GÉNIE RURAL, EAUX ET FORĔTS (Tunisia) and, EGE UNIVERSITY (Turkey). The project has a duration of 36 months - starting from 30th May 2022- and a total funding of 964.6 thousand euros.

The project objective deals with the introduction of Mediterranean sea fennel (C. maritimum L) germplasm well adapted to climate change and Mediterranean conditions (e.g. water shortage, high salinity) for the development of new sustainable organic cropping systems, able to:(i) increase the resilience of the agro livelihood system based on agroecological principles that contribute to the zero-pollution ambition and ii) cope with limited resources and environmental constrains, with the final objectives of enhancing food production stability over time as well as increasing farmers’ incomes. Specific objectives of the project are:

  1. the selection of sea fennel ecotypes, well adapted to the Mediterranean climate;
  2. the introduction of sustainable farming systems for production of organic sea fennel crop in the Mediterranean;
  3. the development of new/improved high value products from the organic sea fennel crops; iv) the valorization of sea fennel by-products for production of functional food ingredients/nutraceuticals/soil amendments;
  4. the demonstration of socio-economic benefits, environmental impacts and sustainability of the proposed innovations;
  5. the dissemination of sustainable sea fennel-based cropping solutions and products in the Mediterranean.

These objectives will be reached thanks to a strong synergy between 8 Partners from 5 Mediterranean countries (IT, FR, HR, TN, TR), including Public Universities and Research Institutes, a Research foundation, and a small farm producing sea fennel crops and sea fennel-based foods (Rinci Srl)