PROJECT IAR DEMONSTRATOR SITE NETWORK

Project IAR Demonstrator Site Network is designed to promote growth in bioeconomy sectors within the Hauts-de-France region, and notably to demonstrate the region’s ability to produce and exploit the agricultural biomass required to supply these sectors.

Together, the project partners are constructing the FILABIOM initiative to support the design and creation of supply channels for local, sustainable and long-term sources of agricultural biomass. All the references, keys to success and feedback constituting the initiative result from the monitoring between 2015 and 2020 of a network of four agronomic experimentation platforms and three sector projects for the non-food commercialisation of local agricultural biomass, hence the name of the project: IAR Demonstrator Site Network.

This multi-partner project is piloted by Agro-Transfert Ressources et Territoires and includes 16 scientific, technical and economic partners from the Hauts-de-France region. From 2015 to 2020 it is being supported by the ERDF, CGET under the Innovation Catalyst Territories initiative and the Hauts-de-France region.

The objective of the project

The FILABIOM approach helps a project leader to construct its sources of agricultural biomass supply and to ensure that they are rooted within the region. For each stage of the initiative, tools are offered to support the project leader and/or assist a consultant working on behalf of the project leader: methodological guides, technical data sheets, videos, etc. These tools are the fruit of work carried out over five years by the partners of the IAR Demonstrator Site Network.

Resources exploited

The objective of Project IAR Demonstrator Site Network is to acquire references and understanding that support the production and exploitation of agricultural biomass in the Hauts-de-France region, to be commercialised locally in the sectors of chemicals, agro-materials and energy.

In order to obtain such references and understanding, the project is structured around a network of demonstrator sites composed of:

• Four agronomic experimentation platforms where testing is performed on frequent crop systems on the south-facing slopes of the region, where new non-food productions are introduced in order to meet the agronomic and environmental challenges faced by farmers and the region as a whole.

• Three pilot territories each play host to a company commercialising agricultural biomass or to one which is planning to do so. They are supported during the implementation of the production and exploitation stages of the biomass required by their sector project.

The data obtained from these sites is subjected to agronomic, environmental and socio-economic assessment; the results are used to construct the FILABIOM approach. Technical feedback relating to coordination of the site network or to the discussions between partners permitted under the project also contribute to developing the project outputs.