The first annual face-to-face meeting of the ClieNFarms GreenDeal project was held in the Netherlands, Wagening, from 18 to 20 October 2022, attended by close to 80 representatives from 30 partner institutions. This was the first time the entire consortium met and was able to discuss the different topics of the project and the work in progress, as well as understand the main difficulties in implementing the different tasks and the next steps to take.
On the first day, the opening was made by the Coordinator, Jacques Eric Bergez from INRAE, and representatives from Wageningen, who hosted the meeting in the Omnia building at the Wageningen University Campus. Then the first plenary session took place, to present the general internal progress report and an overview of the work carried out by the Innovation Management Group. A second plenary session presented a brief overview of each task of the Work Packages, the results and the next steps, and the morning was concluded with the General Assembly.
During the lunch break, the group was split in two, where one half went to visit the Soil Museum and the other half the Friesland Campina Experience Centre, changing these visits the next day. Both visits were very interesting and while the first explained the different soil profiles existing in the five continents, and their main practices and uses, the second addressed the reality of the company, work and products produced by one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the world.
In the afternoon of the first day and on the second day, several workshops were held, presenting different topics and situations to the participants. It was requested teamwork and discussion, to provide some answers and results to be used in the main work packages and in the communication and dissemination channels.
On the last day a field trip was organised, to two different farms, a research and demonstration and a commercial farm, where the Consortium could see the work already done and the different experiments carried out to achieve climate neutrality on a dairy farm in the Netherlands. A hot topic and the central objective of the ClieNFarm project, which will be replicated in different crops and locations, all over Europe, supporting the transition to climate-neutral/ climate-resilient European farming.