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Project Topic
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LAB4SUPPLY is an R&D project that aims to provide a practical solution to address the current difficulties of Mediterranean smallholders and traditional farmers, who face the main challenges that arise in the Agri-food value chain. The Project will offer innovative and viable solutions and opportunities to allow local smallholders to increase their competitiveness and profitability, using optimized Agri-food supply chain and improving adaptation capacity to unexpected market changes, which at the same time are better perceived by the consumers. To fulfil the main objective, LAB4SUPPLY is structured in three main technological pillars: 1) to develop a multidimensional framework for an aggregated analysis on the supply chain; 2) to create and Agri-food Innovation ecosystem living-lab with multi-agent approach, to test the framework in 5 agri-food supply chain cases of study, and 3) to develop a Decision Support System ICT Tool for smallholders. The Project has a very competitive Consortium with 9 Partners from 7 different countries in the Mediterranean area. They all have specialised profiles and possess in-depth knowledge of agricultural value chains, as well as an extensive technological capacity for the development of viable and exploitable solutions adapted to users. LAB4SUPPLY proposes to design and develop a multidimensional framework to analyse five full agri-food supply chains (“farm to fork”) that will integrate economic, social and environmental indicators, with a bottom-up approach considering the stakeholders´ perspectives. The participatory approach of the project is based on the creation of an Agri-food Innovation Ecosystem (AIE) Living-Lab (LL) that will be the arena to collect information from the food sector and consumers and to transfer and apply the new optimized models. This approach will be unfolded by the joint creation of two levels of interaction: a physical one through the creation of an Agri-food Stakeholders Platform (ASP) and a “digital” one through a Decision Support System (DSS) ICT tool to amplify the “scope” of the project. The AIE LL is based in the quadruple helix innovation system approach incorporating local clusters of farmers, small manufacturers and distributors, public institutions, academia, research centres and consumers. The DSS ICT tool consumer/farmer-centred will be developed with the aggregated indicators and inputs generated in the different activities, providing small-holder with key and intuitive information on new markets and opportunities, contributing to a better decision making LAB4SUPPLY fits within Section 2, Agrifood chain topic 2.3.1 “New optimized models of Agri-food supply chain systems offering fair price for consumers & reasonable profit share for producers”, as it will increase small-scale farmers’ competitiveness and consumers’ acceptance by: a)exploring new and alternative market channels; b)accessing new eco-friendly production technologies and food processing industries; c)exploring new business networking and clusters; d)gaining knowledge and easy-to-access information (using the DSS ICT tool) to evaluate new optimized business models scenarios; e)obtaining a fair price at farm level through the implementation of new supply chains (e.g. short supply chain alternatives); f)a better understanding of consumers’ willingness to accept and pay for proximity food products that ensure fair profit to small farmers; g)generating a wide network of connections throughout the entire value chain of 5 relevant agri-food products in the Mediterranean (in 4 countries: Spain, Algeria, France and Morocco), easily replicable to other value chains, regions or countries. To achieve the objectives, the Project Partners will carry out LAB4SUPPLY for 36 months, with a total budget of € 1.477.020, requesting a public contribution of € 1.120.070 €.
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