Sustainable Innovation Pilot 11 (SIP 11) aims at improving the sustainability of the agri-food chains in the Balearic Islands. An important innovation is the use of the “NADIA” platform; a Decision Support System collecting data from the deployed sensors and providing intelligence on sustainable farming practices (reducing water and fertilizers consumption and increase the food quality). Also, SIP11 promotes the generation of synergies between tourism & agriculture to achieve a systemic change.Outcomes: The enhancement of the decision-making process of the Agromallorca engineers, following the data collected from the NADIA platform was achieved, leading to a reduction of 20% in water and fertilizers consumption. Τhe development of a personalised dashboard was also achieved, allowing to generate alarms and manage the greenhouses remotely, saving time and costs.Practical Recommendations: Τhe use of active communication. Αn example is the use of the slogan "Without agriculture there is no tourism" which reported positive results. Moreover, tangible results (e.g. organise visits to the deployment) should always be preferred over words and estimations, to convince people to integrate smart farming technologies.Problems: A problem detected is the acknowledged resistance to adopt digital solutions and the mistrust that characterizes the behaviour of most farmers. One suggestion is to apply the “Show don’t tell” principle.Outlook: To ensure the pilot’s replicability, it’s important to engage key people who can work and collaborate with various stakeholders. Based on the results, it’s safe to estimate that the digitization of the agricultural processes and the collaboration between agri-food and tourism, will be achieved

Sustainable Innovation Pilot 10 (SIP10) aims at establishing sustainable vineyard management practices by promoting the payment of ecosystem services, which are the benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. The Carbon Credits (CCs) calculation, by using the Decision Support System (DSS) vite.net® for the vineyard management, provides strong incentives to apply sustainable farming practices, as CCs can be valorised on the voluntary market. Moreover, a parametric insurance mechanism is introduced addressing environmental conditions particularly favourable for grape disease development.Outcomes: The application of sustainable vineyard management, following the DSS outputs, results in increased carbon sequestration and decrease direct emission of CO2, if compared to the usual practice. Carbon savings can be calculated by using the DSS, in compliance with the protocol developed according to the ISO14064 standard and can be valorised as CC in the voluntary market after their validation. The parametric insurance safeguards the farmer in case weather conditions are extremely favourable for pathogen development.Practical Recommendations: Effective and clear communication towards farmers and the actors engaged across the entire value chain, as they need to understand the value of the innovation to implement it.Problems: Less technological farmers may require to be helped in te use of the DSS is the base for sustainable vineyard management, and allows both the CC calculation and the access to the parametric insurance .Outlook: The path followed for the valorisation of the CC generated through sustainable crop management can be replicated in other situations and perennial crops

Sustainable Innovation Pilot 9 (SIP9) aims at minimizing food waste in Serbia and North Macedonia by monitoring surplus food availability and connecting food donors, food recipients and volunteers. SIP9 streamlines surplus food donations from farms and other food producers, distributors and retailers and distributes food to socially disadvantaged groups, by collaborating with a vast network of partners (such as food banks, etc.).Outcomes: More than 180 users have been registered and 198,484 kg of food have been donated through the platform through 104 realised donations.Practical Recommendations: SIP9 has established and nurtured collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders. To ensure that our efforts are well known, a strong dissemination and communication activities have been conducted throughout the project lifetime. This was achieved through more than 40 appearances in various media outlets - podcasts, national and local television, radio, newspapers, portals, etc.Problems: One problem reported is the lack of trust, time and willingness to use digital solutions, e.g. FoodSHare platform. This problem was solved by organising one-on-one meetings with each platform user and providing them help and guidance when it comes to using the platform.Outlook: FoodSHare aims to reach first buying customers in the years 2024-2025 - in the second phase of the implementation roadmap. In this phase, FoodSHare platform will focus on the further development and increase of the user base, aiming to achieve 300 users in total by the end of 2025. In this phase, the venture is expected to achieve its first paying customers, namely local self-governments and large food retailers, and the first revenue

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 8 (SIP 8) aims at realizing carbon removal by providing incentives to farmers who apply sustainable agricultural practices. Overall, this pilot helps farmers to become service providers via the development of a new value chain (i.e. carbon credit). Besides mapping all the actors involved in the supply chain and optimizing carbon sequestration, SIP8 intends to foster a relational approach (instead of a transactional one), to empower communication that builds trust, respect and cooperation. This way, farmers and companies are better connected with each other, valuing proximity and immediacy.Outcomes: One of the main outcomes is the creation of a group of farmers who collaborate with UDEA (a leading organic trader in the Netherlands) with the aim to conclude a compensation agreement regarding carbon sequestration. Moreover, the development of a carbon prototype tool helped to ensure that soil carbon is quantified.Practical Recommendations: It is suggested that farmers should be engaged early on in the co-design process of the compensation system and that the IT solutions are matching their needs. Moreover, it’s essential to communicate to the stakeholders that data integration constitutes an iterative process, therefore time and patience are required.Problems: A problem that was reported was the complexity of the verification and certification process and the need for specialized expertise and/or training.Outlook: As regards the future sustainability of SIP8, it’s important to engage a wide range of stakeholders (multi-actor strategy) and foster partnerships that share a common vision for the agri-food sector

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 7 (SIP7) aims at improving the sustainability of winegrowers and wineries by combining smart farming (SF) and digital labelling solutions. First, a production support mechanism was implemented, comprised by Agricultural Research Institute’s researchers, agronomists of Oenou Yi winery and the gaiasenseTM SF solution. Second, a traceability solution aligned with the EU labelling regulations was launched to promote (via digital labels) important information to the consumers (i.e. ingredients, calories, applied sustainability practices and other information on the quality and locality of the wines).Outcomes: The gaiasenseTM SF solution helped the winery to reduce pesticides use by 37.5–47.5% on average, production costs by 6.7% and working time by 26.7%. Moreover, digital labels for two wines contributed to an average increase in perceived product quality of 11.5%.Practical Recommendations: It is important to educate farmers and other wine value chain actors on the new available technologies and their potential for improved sustainability. For this, it is suggested to promote a common vision for sustainability and innovation that benefits all.Problems: The communication with the end users (farmers and wineries) was challenging due to their limited available time (high workload) and to differences in perceptions of business and farming practices.Outlook: There is a need to provide more evidence of the benefits of new technologies for agricultural sustainability and help stakeholders understand that, besides technology, innovation also involves behavioural and business changes. This will boost innovation adoption and scaling-up in the agri-food sector.

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 6 (SIP6) aims at rationalizing the use of fertilizers and phytopharmaceutical products, thus ensuring soil health and the preservation of natural resources.The Soil Passport can play a crucial role in supporting farmers by providing concrete evidence of the successful adoption of precision fertilization and spraying practices, ultimately facilitating their eligibility for subsidies through the CAP program. Furthermore, the meticulous tracking of all soil management activities, continuous monitoring and comprehensive documentation of soil-related data will open up new avenues of utility for the Soil Passport.Outcomes: Smart fertilization service (8 farms, 64 fields) resulted in reduced use of fertilizers in average of 17,3% and maximum up to 30%. Targeted spraying piloted on 14 fields resulting in average decrease of pesticides by 21% and exceed 30% in some cases.Practical Recommendations: Careful selection of participating farmers to ensure that the “sine qua non” requirements are met (i.e. equipment with support for targeted applications and fields above few ha area) is very important. Moreover, consistent monitoring of the fertilization and spraying indicators should be carried out.Problems: One problem reported was linked to the time-consuming individual meetings held with the farmers to inform them of the technological solutions, to check their equipment and solutions and train them on the use of the machinery.Outlook: The farmers that have machinery compatible with variable rate application and fields of size exceeding few ha are very interested. It is estimated that a 3-month period is required for the preparation and the successful replication of the pilot

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 5 (SIP5) aims at improving the standard of living in rural areas of Ireland by digitalising agricultural processes.One of the main activities was the implementation of a diversified approach regarding the business model applied in dairy and suckler production. Connecting food producers with the agri-tourism and the implementation of smart farming solutions (i.e. sensors for data collection) were also important milestones.Outcomes: The co-development of diversified business models has led to 5 new farm business plans. Sensor technology has been installed on 28 farms enabling a predictive model for grass growth, a slurry management tool and access to milk yield per cow per day. The creation of a local agri-food network allowed for improved information transfer among farmers.Practical Recommendations: It is important to maintain data collection to realise the full value of the database over time to enable pattern analysis and predictions. The social infrastructure of the farming group and its capacity building benefit also needs to be maintained. Continued signposting of business supports is important.Problems: It is concluded that there is a gap between food production and food branding, abattoirs, co-operatives and retailers. Therefore, the challenge of bridging the gap between agriculture and tourism requires the effectuation of changes in the applied practices and/or the legal framework.Outlook: Overall, it’s estimated that the strong tourism market and the high quality of local produce set a promising baseline. The goal for the near future is to develop co-operative structures to bring produce direct to this market.

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 4 (SIP4) aims at bridging the gap between pre- and post-harvest traceability. One core objective of SIP4 is to ensure the implementation of data intelligence across the horticulture value chain. Moreover, following the automatization of data collection, the goal is to carry out data analysis, present those data to the farmers and provide incentives to change the methodologies used until now.Outcomes: The adoption of new digital technologies implemented as sensors has had a positive impact. Although in some cases the desired levels have not been achieved, the results can be improved further in the coming years.Practical Recommendations: It is important to ensure the progressive application of the proposed solutions, in order to allow the smooth transition to data-driven processes.Problems: Scalability is one of the main problems. Many companies do not usually have standardized systems with a single solution. Adoption of technology by farmers is another problem. Many of them are not used to using this type of technology. This is why digitization processes must be carried out progressively.Outlook: One of the efforts will focus on achieving greater scalability. An agreement has been reached with a hardware company to assemble a cost-effective and easy-to-install sensor kit that guarantees the automation of data collection. Farmers will also continue to be trained to use the technology according to their budget and show them the economic impact of sustainable agricultural management.

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 3 (SIP3) aims at supporting local producers and the entire agri-food sector, by creating fair-trade products.The pilot ensures that consumers can design their products through a crowdsourcing platform and define how much they are willing to pay for them to the retailer and the producer. Through a web-app and a mobile app they can vote, explore the retail spaces available and scan the QR code to get specific product information. The goal is to empower consumers to drive change through their choices.Outcomes: Important outcomes include the development of consumer-centric IT tools, the implementation of Smart Farming (SF) technologies and the targeted dissemination activities. Overall, awareness creation helped consumers to better understand agri-food processes and value chains by accessing relevant information and becoming a higher decision maker.Practical Recommendations: The main recommendation would be for brands to increase transparency by giving to consumers access to more information on the food creation process. Moreover, the goal is to create one single tool with different applications, to be easily translated in other EU languages. Another recommendation is to encourage farmers to adopt SF tools to facilitate sustainable farming practices and products.Problems: One problem identified is the process of finding the right partners for the product development and distribution. Also, due to the swift changes in production costs, it’s considered difficult to launch a cost study for a new product.Outlook: The next steps include the engagement of an active community of consumers, the promotion of research transparency and the need to better identify all actors involved in the process

Ploutos’ Sustainable Innovation Pilot 1 (SIP1) aims at helping fruit producers in Greece to reduce production costs and increase their revenues, at an environmentally friendly way.In the context of SIP1, IoT weather stations were installed in PROODOS’ fields, covering two different climate/soil zones and a Smart Farming (SF) solution, gaiasenseTM, was launched to allow farmers to optimise their use of inputs (irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides). It was connected to a traceability app, which allowed authorized users to access data from the farm logs in relation to the produced frozen fruit and enabled the reuse of collected data for acquiring certificates and labels that can lead to increased product value.Outcomes: The adoption of the SF and traceability solutions helped to reduce the pesticide use by 45%-64% and the farm production costs by 56-63%, while 2 sustainability related certificates and labels where acquired.Practical Recommendations: There is a need to educate and familiarize farmers with the new technology through demonstrations on the field and the support of farm advisors. In addition, it’s very important to raise awareness on the new collaborative business models that are based on cross-value chain collaboration, data sharing and fair distribution of extra value captured.Problems: A key problem was the difficulty in communicating clearly to the farmers the value of the proposed innovations, because the impact is usually visible after 2-3 years.Outlook: As regards the future implementation of this solution, it’s important to ensure the active engagement of the farmers. Moreover, data collection should have a 2 to 3-year time span, to capture variations in climate conditions and allow safe conclusions to be drawn.

The Ploutos project developed mechanisms for achieving data sharing across agri-food stakeholders (farmers, food processors, retailers, consumers) aiming to push forward data driven technological innovation. The literature review and our analysis of the real-life agrifood barriers and drivers to technology adoption, led us to the following principles:A. Stakeholders should retain control of their data.B. Interoperability must be maintained with conventional software, whether legacy or developed in the future.C. Vendor lock-in must be avoided thereby ensuring both flexibility and future proofing of any given part of the overall system.Aiming to support a harmonized manner for expressing the main common concepts derived from various ICT systems of the agrifood domain the Ploutos Core Semantic Model (PCSM) was specified based on the modular reuse of existing data models issued by standardization bodies like the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.In combination with the PCSM, the Ploutos Interoperability Enabler (PIE) was introduced able to be deployed as a plug and play software module on top of existing ICT systems. A PIE deployed on top of a Farm Management Information System can receive queries for data selections from remote systems, to authorize the data exchange and then to fetch, translate and transfer the data. In combination with the “Ploutos Registration and Discovery Directory” the PIEs announce their existence and hence are discoverable by entities interested to exchange data.A key practical outcome is that data interoperability can be applied even with legacy ICT systems with the use of lightweight data translators without the need for radical changes on the existing operations of systems

Agriculture can provide ecosystem services, which are the benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and properly-working ecosystems. For instance, sustainable crop management allows the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the usual practice.In order for the farmer to get a remuneration for the service provided, avoided carbon emissions need to be calculated, verified, and then can be valorized in the voluntary market for Carbon Credits (CCs). There, CCs are sold to industries and individuals willing to voluntarily compensate for their emissions to mitigating climate change.To give farmers access to this market, a protocol for calculating reduced carbon emissions and increased carbon sequestration linked to the agricultural activities was elaborated, with detailed methods and procedures to be applied.Within Ploutos, farmers used the Decision Support System (DSS) vite.net® to implement sustainable vineyard management in their fields and record all crop operations. The DSS includes a functionality to calculate carbon emissions by the agricultural activity, allowing to calculate CCs obtained thanks to the sustainable crop management realized in field. The calculation takes into consideration all the crop operations registered in the system, accounting for the direct carbon emissions, as well as carbon sequestration, considering soil carbon dynamics. The calculation is site-specific, as it takes into account weather data and soil characteristics.The DSS has thus the double role of providing decision support for implementing sustainable crop management and calculating of avoided carbon emissions linked to the implementation of sustainable cropping practices.

The Ploutos H2020 project works with 11 Sustainability Oriented Innovation Pilots (SIPS) in 13 European countries, implementing and testing sustainability-oriented innovations. It is vital that effective knowledge is exchanged between SIPs to learn from each other strengths and weaknesses. Case studies are utilised for uncovering deeper layers of motives, beliefs and values that drive behaviours. Exchange on lessons are critical for scaling up success stories across the SIPs and beyond. 
One of the tools to facilitate this exchange and horizontal learning process is the use of case studies. This tool has been adapted from the ‘impact stories’ developed in another H2020 project, LIAISON. The tool’s purpose is to produce case studies that are accessible and pedagogical to facilitate learning across SIPs and to inform their practices. Case studies were selected to represent various projects' goals: multi-actor engagement, expertise in engaging and working with different actor cohorts. We have selected five SIPs to highlight their sustainable practices and related behavioural innovation challenges. 
The experiences thus exchanged have the advantage of being tested and practical knowledge that will resonate with practitioners who may recognise similar challenges. Ideas and innovations tested in practice are easier to scale up if the end user has access to the background behind those innovations. Case studies allow better understanding of the challenges and adaptability to different contexts. As well as inspiring sustainability-oriented innovations, this tool provides support for evidence-based decision-making for end-users.

Sustainability-oriented innovation in the agri-food sector requires the participation and the collaboration of multiple actors, which is challenging in its own right. Based on a series of workshops, inspired by the EIP-Agri model, with key actors in the agri-food sector (farmers, consumers, policy-makers, advisors, researchers, practitioners), we identified the values (economic, cultural and social) motivating actors to participate in sustainability-oriented innovation. We created a comprehensive list of values, a tool to facilitate steering of relevant dialogue between different actors in the agri-food value-chain, generating spaces for pursuing mutual value. This tool is an adaptation of the ‘motivations register’ dveloped by another H2020 project, LIAISON. In Ploutos, we included values as a broader concept acting as enablers but also as hindrances for multi-actor engagement. The values register is a living register in which project participants can add, as the project progresses, new motivations.
Multi-actor involvement is necessary in the context of targeted interventions on behaviour to enhance sustainability. This tool will help in activities aimed at multi-actor engagement and to approaching stakeholders, in terms that are relevant to them and respond to their values. We can thus support the networking of end-users in ways that can be beneficial to them, by creating new business opportunities, vertical/horizontal integration and collaboration between relevant stakeholders, and attracting potential partners. As importantly, end-users we can keep actors in their ecosystems engaged and motivated.

The Ploutos Innovation Academy (PIA) is a virtual space set-up by experts in sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs). Actors of agri-food supply chains are engaged in the co-design of those innovations and receive tailored support services. To ensure the successful development and implementation of high-impact innovations, the PIA offers the following tools and services:
• Participatory approaches: Researchers, professionals and practitioners come together and collaborate for the co-design of new solutions.
• Knowledge foundations: The PIA disseminates knowledge built around three components of SOIs i) behavioral changes; ii) data-driven technology; iii) collaborative sustainable business models; also including a framework for sustainability performance, to measure the success of the SOIs. Potential issues in these areas are recognized, tackled, or turned into opportunities with suitable interventions. 
• Use cases: Examples of practical applications in the three components of SOIs are presented and critically discussed.
• Practical tools and methodological guidelines: An array of practical tools and the related methodological guidelines are made available to the innovators
• Lessons learnt from others: Actors of other supply chains involved in the development and implementation of SOIs share common challenges and acquired expertise. 
• Ad-hoc consulting services: Experts provide ad-hoc support and contribute with specific problem-solving approaches.
Key practical recommendation for a successful implementation of the PIA is the combination of peer-to-peer exchange to identify the type of knowledge to query and experts led training, to integrate existing knowledge with experience on the ground.