D8.9 – Final Report on Dissemination Activites

Industrial crops can provide valuable resources for high value products and bioenergy. The MAGIC project therefore aims to promote the sustainable development of resource-efficient and economically profitable industrial crops grown on marginal lands. In order to achieve this goal, four databases were developed. An up-to-date database of existing resource-efficient industrial crops provides relevant information on agronomic crop characteristics, input requirements, yield performance and quality traits for various end use applications (WP1). Meanwhile, the Decision Support System (DSS) actively involves farmers and end users and supports their decision process depending on the specifics of the individual surroundings. In parallel, a third database maps current and future marginal lands in Europe. These are characterized and analyzed, in order to provide a spatially explicit classification that serves as a base for the development of sustainable best-practice options for industrial crops (WP2). An additional a Bio2Match tool support practicioners in identifying suitable opportunities by collecting information on conversion technologies for various biomass crops growing on European Marginal Lands. The four MAGIC-databases aim at maximizing the economic benefits of marginal lands by integrating sustainability aspects (covering environment, society and economy) of the value chains (WP6). Success stories of industrial crops in EU regions address technical, environmental, economic and social issues to produce policy recommendations and best-practice guidelines for their promotion at local/regional level (WP7). All project results, databases, maps and the DSS- and Bio2Match-tool serve as dissemination tools in order to increase the awareness of farmers and various other stakeholder groups and establish strong links with the EIP AGRI (WP8) and related partner projects like PANACEA, BIKE and BECOOL. The following report introduces all executed dissemination activities of the project months 1- 48 in order to introduce the project’s objectives and its results to a broad international audience and maximize the positive socioeconomic and environmental impact. These summarize the achievements and tasks of WP8