European Agro-food sector met in Murcia Brokerage Event on 23rd-24th October 2011 for the development of food technology, cooperation and technology transfer.
AGFORISE Project (AGroFOod Clusters Platform with Common Long-Term Research and Innovation Strategy towards Economic Growth and Prosperity), in which TAGES is a partner, was one of the organizers of the Brokerage Event. Through this event, AGFORISE project team aimed at enhancing cross collaboration among research and commercial communities and exploiting synergies and fostering joint projects.
AGFORISE Project Partners from Turkey – TAGES, Mersin Special Provincial Agency (MSPA), Mersin Chamber of Trade and Industry (MTSO), ALATA Horticultural Research Station and TARGID – participated to the symposium and brokerage event. Besides the project team of Ahmet ZAHTEROGULLARI – project coordinator, MSPA; Leyla ARSAN, Gurbet Deniz YAVUZ- TAGES; Betül LEVENT-MTSO; Davut KELEŞ-ALATA; Mustafa ASPARUK- TARGID; a group of Turkish researchers from Mersin Region had the chance to participate to the event in Cartagena, Spain with the support of the AGFORISE Project. Researcher team includes Osman UYSAL, Hasan PINAR, Übeyit SEDAY, Atilla ATA, Mustafa ÜNLÜ, Mustafa BİRCAN and Çetin NACAR from ALATA; Halil ESİMEK from Kahramanmaraş Research Station, Mustafa Erkan from Akdeniz University, Nefise Özlen ŞAHİN from Mersin University, Özgehan GÜNDÜZ from TARGID, Seniye KAZANÇ from Kadıoğlu Spice, Kasım TANRIOVER from MTSO, Serhat Kara Limkon Gıda. EBILTEM, a member of Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), was also represented in the event by Tutku ASARKAYA.
The researchers had bilateral meetings with European counterparts for cooperative agreements and developing new research projects. TAGES CEO Leyla ARSAN and TAGES Projects Consultant Gurbet Deniz YAVUZ attended to the event and supported the Turkish researchers during the bilateral meetings.
Latest novelties in Food Technology were shared in the International Symposium
The Murcia Food Brokerage Event was held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Food Technology with the support of the Regional Development Agency of Murcia (INFO), the Food and Canning Technology Centre and the Technological Institute of Agro food (AINIA) at the request of the EEN SEIMED – Enterprise Europe Network. International Symposium on Food Technology presented participants a number of conferences and presentations on two topics: Functional Foodstuffs and Food Technologies. Successful project results were presented and important technologists shared their knowledge with the participants.
AGFORISE Announced a Call for Proposals in Mersin, Emilia Romagna, Murcia
AGFORISE Project has announced a Call for Proposals in three participant regions (Mersin, Emilia Romagna and Murcia) with the aim of preparing proposals to the next KBBE call 7 FP 2012. Researchers from public and private sector replied to the call and sent their project ideas in the requested format. The call covered seven topics with related to the Call of the EU 7thFramework Programme KBBE Call.
- Topic 1:Food processing: Automation in food packaging systems.
- Topic 2: Environmental impacts and total food chain: Quantification of food waste.
- Topic 3: Food processing: Processing and distribution of personalised foods.
- Topic 4: Fork to farm: Food (including seafood), health and well being: Area 2.2.1 Consumers: Development and application of new tools to implement food-related policies in Europe
- Topic 5: Socio-Economic research and support to policies: Short chain delivery of food for urban-peri-urban areas
- Topic 6: Reducing post-harvest losses for increased food security
- Topic 7: Integrated approach to studying effects of combined biotic and abiotic stress in crop plant
The proposals were evaluated against the criteria of technological excellence and relevance with the topic and 8 proposals from Mersin, 6 from Emilia Romagna and 20 from Murcia was selected. The selected proposals were promised for a general support in partnership building and participating in the AGFORISE Brokerage Event organized in Cartagena under the umbrella of the Murcia Food Brokerage Event.
Turkish Researchers at Murcia Brokerage Event
14 researchers from ALATA Horticultural Research Station, Akdeniz University Department of Horticultural Faculty of Agriculture, Mersin University, Kahramanmaraş Research Station, Mersin Chamber of Commerce, TARGID, Kadıoglu Spice arranged 56 bilateral meetings with European researchers and accepted 19 meeting invitations.
Besides the bilateral meetings, special meetings were held. Francisco Artes Calero from the Polytechnic University from Cartagena, Prof. Bertolini (Emilia Romagna) and Prof Erkan (Mersin) met to develop the project ‘Reduction of postharvest losses and enhancing security and overall quality by combined physical treatments of selected whole and fresh-cut Mediterranean horticultural products ‘ –LOSS+SECURITY.
Turkish delegation visited IMIDA and CEBAS-CSIC, two well known Spanish research centres, had meetings with researchers around the possibilities to find collaborative project proposals interesting for all parts and seen their research infrastructures.
Brokerage Event created a real cooperation environment for the Agro-food sector where Turkish researchers discussed about their project ideas and learned about the ongoing research in Europe. Researchers started to develop their ideas and built the first contacts with their potential partners for developing European research projects. AGFORISE Project will support the researchers to make the first steps continue and turned into concrete results for high technology in Agro-food sector.
AGFORISE Project
The main objective of the AGFORISE (AGroFOod Clusters Platform with Common Long-Term Research and Innovation Strategy towards Economic Growth and Prosperity) project is to create a common dialogue platform and a joint action plan among the Agrofood clusters that will maximise capacity for research and benefit from research infrastructure through complementariness and synergy, so as to contribute for sustainable development, prosperity, economic growth and global competitiveness of the regions. The consortium is integrated by 13 partners from 3 different regions (Mersin, Emilia-Romagna, Murcia) each of which has brought added value from a different perspective but with complementary properties, related with their expertise areas.
