Cropexplore for Farmers (CEF)

The Cropexplore for farmers project unlocks and strengthens technical agricultural knowledge around the (very) many atypical crops that farmers could grow in function of bioeconomic processing, thus also for non-food applications. Pillar 3 of the bioeconomy policy plan launched by the Flemish government in 2021 focuses on innovative collaborations between farmers and industrial processors in the bioeconomy. The B2BE Facilitator has captured individual questions from farmers striving for crop diversification towards bioeconomy crops. Crop knowledge of bioeconomy crops is highly fragmented. One objective of this project is to centralize the information around cultivation characteristics, acreage and marketing opportunities for the different harvestable biomasses. Everything will be easily searchable by farmers and processors.

The knowledge and expertise regarding cultivation of these bioeconomy crops is digitally centralized from the many fragmented sources. For three specific crops (deder, yacon and hemp) a lot of knowledge and expertise is already available. The aim of this project is to increase the acreage and optimize the (multi-)valorization of the harvested biomass. 

The project consortium aims for an ecological and societal transition to a bioeconomy, with arable farms betting on alternative crops and Flemish processors actively working on the potential for food, feed or industry (entirely or through residual flows and by-products).