Project description
Soil solution for agriculture and forestry
Soil degradation, drought and water scarcity are all problems affecting agriculture and forestry. The EIC-funded Agrobiogel project is proposing an innovative solution that stores and slowly releases water and fertiliser to address these problems encountered in modern farming, plant nurseries and greenhouses worldwide. The innovation saves up to 40 % in irrigation water use, protects plants and crops from increasing droughts and erratic rainfall patterns, reduces agricultural input costs and converts agricultural non-productive soils into agricultural lands. Agrobiogel utilises widely underutilised lignin produced by the pulp and paper industry. What's more, it can replace expensive non-biodegradable fossil-based hydrogels with much cheaper organic ones.
Objective
Agrobiogel is a novel soil improver that stores and slowly releases water and fertilizer. It addresses many of the pain points and challenges of modern farming, forestry, plant nurseries and green houses all over the world:
(1) save up to 40 % irrigation water
(2) protect plants/crops from increasing droughts and erratic rainfall patterns
(3) reduce agricultural input costs
(4) convert agricultural non productive soils, including 100 % sand soil, into agriculture productive soils
(5) Matching the urgent desire to replace expensive non biodegradable fossil based hydrogels with much cheaper organic hydrogels
(6) Agrobiogel as a product of widely under-utilised lignin produced by the Pulp and Paper industry as well as the emerging biorefinery helps create value for this raw material thereby helping them not only expand their product portfolio but also reduce their carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions.
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HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended FinanceCoordinator
3430 TULLN AN DER DONAU
Austria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.