TECHAGRO
7.-11.4. 2024
International Fair of Agricultural Machinery
A new innovation support framework in agriculture
New activities of the European Commission in the field of knowledge and innovation transfer were presented at a seminar title "Innovations in Agriculture", which was held on the occasion of the TECHAGRO exhibition by the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture.
The aim was to inform the professional public about news in the field of innovation support, which will be even more emphasized in the next programming period than in the past. "The Steering Committee of the European Commission prepared a strategic plan for implementation of the European Innovation Partnership 'Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability'. The new instrument should contribute to the rapid transfer of research results to the general practice, which is certainly welcome," said the advisor to the President of the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic Jan Záhorka at the beginning of the seminar. He added that specialized research would in future no longer be evaluated according to the number of articles, but by applying the results in general practice.
The European Innovation Partnership as a new approach of the EU to research and innovation was explained in detail by Kateřina Bělinová from the Czech Ministry of Agriculture. Innovations play a key role in the reform of the common agricultural policy and € 4.5 billion have been allocated for research and innovation in the area of food safety, bio-economy and sustainable agriculture. The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) is defined here as a tool for innovation development, both at European and national level. "EIP seeks to accelerate the transfer of research results into practice, coordination of investments in pilot and demonstration projects, possibly speeding up the necessary legislation and stimulation of interest on the demand side through the coordination of procurement," says K. Bělinová and emphasizes the crucial importance of cooperation and communication between the different actors. The second part of the seminar presented experience in the field of cooperation and innovation in agriculture from other EU countries. International examples of good practice, where the implementation has very similar principles to the EIP and operational groups include, among others, power generation using water from Ireland or Italian potato farmers’ cooperation on joint research of new varieties.
Domestic examples of successful implementation of innovations were introduced by Martin Ludvík from the Fruit-growers Union of the Czech Republic. These include the so-called columnar apple trees growing in very dense spacing that allows the mechanization of the harvest, or the use of anti-hail cannons, which manage to break through the clouds with shock waves. Innovations are also applied in technology of fruit storing in gas-tight chambers, technology for non-destructive detection of internal defects in the fruit or sorting according to sugars and acids.
