Why Grains ?
The agri-food sector is both impacted by and contributes to climate change. It can help mitigate climate change by adopting several solutions, including sustainable farming practices, reducing food loss and waste, developing eco-packaging solutions, promoting local markets and sustainable diets, and investing in innovative technologies to reduce carbon, energy, and water footprints while ensuring biodiversity. Moreover, faced with growing global demand and resource competition, the EU’s agri-food activities need to be seen in a broader context—linked to energy, biodiversity, healthy diets, and food security.
This sector is vital in achieving the European Green Deal and is supported by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) In the last years, accelerating the twin transition has become a transversal priority for the EU, and the social economy plays a crucial role in this twin transition by helping to build a greener and more equitable agrifood sector, promoting inclusive and sustainable models.
In 2022, the European Commission published the Twin Transition Pathway for social economy ecosystem.Social economy players are developing alternative and sustainable food systems. Small and medium-sized agri-food enterprises can promote sustainability by reducing emissions, providing affordable and high-quality food, and generating employment opportunities. However, these SMEs face challenges such as skills gaps, policy restrictions, and funding constraints.
Objectives
GRAINS project aims to address these challenges by:
- Providing training on sustainable practices and on how to reduce their environmental footprint.
- Supporting the transition of social economy SMEs towards sustainable and environmentally friendly practices and production processes.
- Promoting the adoption of sustainable technologies and innovations in the agri-food
- Building the capacity and competitiveness of social economy SMEs through knowledge transfer and skills development in sustainable practices.
- Fostering transnational cooperation, best practice sharing, and promoting sustainable practices through awareness-raising efforts.
Outputs
Coaching and mentoring advice services to
Business advisory services to
Financial support to
Partnership
To achieve the project objectives, a strong and synergical consortium
has been set up, composed of 6 organisations in 5 countries: Belgium, Germany, Romania, Italy and Ukraine.
The consortium partners are directly supported by 3 associated partners: EURO COOP that brings together 20 national movements of consumer co-operatives in Europe, plus PRACTICO, a part of Smart People business school in Ukraine, and Leaders International ASBL
