In April this year, the three new EIP-Agri projects ANAPLANT, CRIFORA and Schneckenzucht Altmark received their funding decisions. Today, the Minister for Economy, Tourism, Agriculture and Forestry, Sven Schulze, visited the projects to find out about the status of implementation and to exchange ideas with the groups. At the site of the OG Schneckenzucht Altmark, in the small town of Cobbel near Stendal, the three projects presented themselves in the form of short impulses.
The innovation projects address current challenges facing agriculture in Saxony-Anhalt: The OG Schneckenzucht aims to establish a regional value chain around snails in the Altmark region by setting up a snail farm and the holistic utilisation of the snails. Changing cultivation conditions also play a role for the OG ANAPLANT, which checks the validity of target values for plant nutrients every three years and updates them in an open source database. Not only the persistent drought in Saxony-Anhalt has a negative impact on yields, but also the increasing infestation of arable crops with field mouse populations. In order to be able to distinguish these from the strictly protected field hamster, the OG CRIFORA is developing an automated UAV procedure to detect them, which will serve agriculture and nature conservation as a decision-making basis for population management.
At the end of the event, Sven Schulze thanked the lead partners for their commitment and looked forward to tasting regionally produced snail products during his next visit. The final visit to the breeding facility under construction impressively conveyed the size of the first breeding plot.
Further information on the projects and EIP-Agri in Saxony-Anhalt: European Innovation Partnerships (sachsen-anhalt.de)
Contact at IfLS: Oliver Müller (mueller[at]ifls.de) and Dr Ulrich Gehrlein (gehrlein[at]ifls.de)
