BalkanROAD - Towards farms with zero carbon-, waste- and water-footprint. Roadmap for sustainable management strategies for Balkan agricultural sector

The Institute for Mediterranean Studies is partner in the project “Towards farms with zero carbon-, waste- and water-footprint. Roadmap for sustainable management strategies for Balkan agricultural sector – BalkanROAD” which is implemented in five countries (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Albania) by 7 organizations.

On the 12th, 13th and 14th of February 2020, BalkanROAD project organized the OpenEARTH Conference on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, which took place in Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference addressed the main issue of climate change adaptation and mitigation in primary and secondary sectors through the promotion of agricultural practices and modern effective technologies. It focused mainly on carbon-, waste- and water-footprint and aimed to stimulate the interest of scientists and citizens and to inform them about the sustainable management strategies for Balkan agricultural and agribusiness sectors. The participants had the opportunity to attend very interesting presentations and share and discuss their research work and findings on mitigation and adapting to Climate Change.

The participation of students and teachers at Friday's February 14th sessions gave to conference a different note and made us optimistic about their interest and concern about this global problem.

Oak trees were planted on the 15th of February in Naoussa at the pilot agribusiness Kyr Yiannis, as a symbolic action of balancing carbon dioxide emissions emitted due to the OpenEARTH 2020 conference. From the data collected by the participants and the conference venue, it was estimated that 17.7 tons of carbon dioxide were emitted into the atmosphere because of OpenEARTH conference. Therefore, five oak trees were planted at the pilot area of the BalkanROAD project in Naoussa, North Greece, to equilibrate the conference's carbon footprint with the participation of the conference participants, students and teachers. The participants were guided to Kyr Yiannis Winery, where they were also informed on how the project worked the past two years and how the web app ROADTOOL, the web application for calculating the carbon- water- and waste of agricultural businesses, was developed. The conference is planned to become a regular event and OpenEARTH 2022 will be held in Cyprus.

The project “Towards farms with zero carbon-, waste- and water-footprint. Roadmap for sustainable management strategies for Balkan agricultural sector – BalkanROAD” is financed by the European Union, within the framework of the “Balkan-Mediterranean 2014-2020 Programme” and will last two years from 08/09/2017 to 05/05/2020.