Organic Ecosystem

Boosting cross border Organic Ecosystem through enhancing agro-food alliances

The project aims at enhancing organic MSMEs through the creation of a CB Organic Ecosystem in collaboration with Public Authorities and Private Actors. This is pursued by the scaling up of the organic value chain through the establishment of new Med business alliances.

Programme: ENI CBC MED 2014-2020

Start Date: 25 December 2019

End date: 24 September 2023

Key Information

Thematic objective: A.1 Business and SMEs development

Priority: A.1.2 Euro – Mediterranean economic clusters

Countries: Jordan, Lebanon, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Spain

Total budget: 2.185.966,47 €

90% – European Union (ENI CBC MED)

10% – Project co-financing

Description

The Project involves Project Partners from 7 Mediterranean Countries where Competent Authorities, in charge of sector’s policy and surveillance, are involved and ensure project results sustainability. Objectives are reached by a CB Organic Ecosystem and a common strategy (O3.1); Consultancy services for business development to facilitate SMEs in innovative value chain creation (O4.1);

Local Labs to share knowledge and support new business alliances (O5.1) and international business events to facilitate MSMEs market access and the link with research (O5.2). 150 MSMEs (production, processing, supply, trade etc.) are involved and at least 24 organic MSMEs are directly supported. Project final beneficiaries are agro-food MSMEs at large and consumers that benefit at all levels from a trustful organic sector.

The general objective of the Programme is to foster fair, equitable and sustainable economic, social and territorial development, which may advance cross-border integration and valorise participating countries’ territories and values. The strategy is based on the following two overall objectives:

Promote economic and social development
Address common challenges in the environment

About the Project

Agriculture puts a lot of pressure on the environment. Soil fertility, biodiversity and human life are all negatively impacted by intensive and extensive farming. There is no doubt that organic agriculture is a great solution to achieve food safety and security as well as environmental sustainability. However, organic agriculture is still relatively underdeveloped in Mediterranean countries with heterogeneous situations from country to country.

Main shared challenges are inconsistent or lacking support policies from national/local governments, low innovation capacities, limited knowledge of sustainable farming practices, and a weak value chain where MSMEs operate in a disaggregated way. ORGANIC ECOSYSTEM project aims at reducing these obstacles and make the MSMEs operating in organic agriculture more competitive and better integrated.

The project intends to establish a cross-border agro-food ecosystem which will set the ground for the development of the Mediterranean whole organic sector. This will be encouraged through new business alliances, creation of innovative value chains, and specialized support provided to MSMEs to increase the quality and the commercialization of products and their capacities to access to new markets.

What will be improved?

The establishment of a Mediterranean organic ecosystem will result in better support policies, more efficient tools and services and, in consequence, increased competitiveness of organic MSMEs that will scale-up and access new markets. New job opportunities will be created and income will be leveraged for organic farmers. It is also expected that a significant number of MSMEs will convert to organic farming, thus contributing to soil conservation and environmental sustainability.

Expected achievements

1 Organic Cross-Border network established for cooperation, dialogue, knowledge transfer among stakeholders of the organic sector

40 training days to provide MSMEs with tools and methods aimed at boosting organic production, processing and marketing

25 MSMEs receiving consultancy services to facilitate their entry in innovative organic value chains and participating in international agro-food fairs