Marginal lands and industrial crops for the European bioeconomy
Combining bio-based products, climate resilience and biodiversity through innovative agricultural value chains.
Supporting the European Bioeconomy
The transition to a bio-based economy requires a sustainable supply of biomass, while ensuring food security and respecting our environment.
Climate-resilient industrial crops grown on marginal agricultural land can provide sustainable biomass for the European bioeconomy, without reducing the land available for food, while enhancing soil health and protecting biodiversity.
MIDAS is a Horizon Europe project that aims to:
Map and characterize marginal land in Europe for low-ILUC biomass production
Grow industrial crops on marginal land with climate-resilient and biodiversity-compatible systems
Produce sustainable biomass feedstock additional to food production
Build value chains and develop business for innovative bio-based products
Bio-based value chains
MIDAS adopts a resource-efficient biorefinery concept to develop innovative value chains for a wide range of bio-products.
Protecting soil health and biodiversity
The use of selected industrial crops and the adoption of innovative cropping systems protect pollinators, enhance biodiversity at landscape level, remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce soil erosion.
Europe's Marginal Lands
In this StoryMap we explain
how we define and mapped marginal lands for the current (2020) situation and for
the future (2050).
Supporting the European Green Deal
Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals
News
MIDAS Project Taps Guayule: A Specialty Crop for bio-based products
14 February 2024
Guayule, a specialty crop native to arid regions, holds great potential for producing latex, rubber, and resin. One of the aims of MIDAS is to
Mapping the extent of marginal land in Europe
12 February 2024
This post is an edited version of original content provided by B. Elbersen, M. van Eupen, G. Hazeu, S. Verzandvoort, W. Meininger & S. Mantel.
Crop cultivation trials on marginal lands, first year results in Hungary
21 December 2023
In the EU around 60 million hectares of agricultural land have characteristics of marginality, representing approximately 29% of the total available agricultural land. This figure
