What is the main focus of your Expert Group?
Our expert group aims to address the water challenges faced by the agrifood sector, promote sustainable water management practices in agriculture and food processing and facilitate collaboration between water and agrifood stakeholders.
What are the opportunities and challenges in your field that the Expert group is addressing?
It is pivotal to store excess winter water for agricultural use during summer. Storage can be above ground and underground and needs follow up in terms of water quantity (e.g. evapotranspiration), water quality (e.g. monitoring), water treatment (e.g. disinfection).
Alternative water sources can be considered such as reclaimed water from municipalities and industry. Minimum water quality requirements are imposed by the EC and an adequate risk assessment needs to be performed. Several alternative water sources can be used by agriculture (e.g. rain water, surface water, reclaimed water) and should be promoted within the agrifood sector. Water consumption can be lowered by implementing water-efficient agricultural practices, precision farming, drip irrigation. For this, digital technologies and data management practices can offer support. Mitigation measures to lower the environmental pressure from agricultural activities should be promoted. Therefore, innovative solutions and best practices should be demonstrated and disseminated to enhance productivity, resilience and sustainability.
How does your Expert Group plan to achieve its goals, and how will it contribute to Water Europe’s Vision of a Water-Smart Society?
To achieve its objectives and support Water Europe’s Vision of a Water-Smart Society, the Expert Group focuses on accelerating knowledge exchange and fostering innovation within the agrifood sector. This will be done through the organisation of four online webinars, covering a range of relevant topics to promote awareness and adoption of cutting-edge solutions. The group also aims to address pressing research needs and share best practices by engaging directly with key EU bodies such as EIP-Agri, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), and DG AGRI. In addition, it will facilitate water-related research in the agrifood domain by promoting relevant project calls, helping stakeholders find suitable partners, and connecting with Water-Oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) focused on agrifood systems. As a concrete output, the group will also draft a technical paper on a timely and impactful topic within the agrifood sector. Through these actions, the Expert Group contributes to building a resilient, resource-efficient, and innovation-driven water-smart society.
