On February 19, the Chairman of the Lviv Agrarian Chamber Ihor Vuytsyk took part in a working meeting with international partners regarding the preparation and writing of an application for the Horizon Europe program competition. During the meeting, the concept of the MountainPROTEIN (Climate-Resilient Protein Crops for Foothill and Mountain Agriculture) project was discussed, which is planned to be submitted to the competition HORIZON-CL6-2026-02-FARM2FORK-03 “Boosting the competitiveness of protein crops in Europe” within Cluster 6 “Fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food systems from primary production to consumption”.
The goal of the project is to increase the competitiveness and climate stability of the cultivation of protein crops in the foothills and mountain regions of Europe. Special attention is paid to the implementation of integrated production systems that combine annual and perennial legume crops, the use of innovative inter-row crops, the adaptation of varieties to mountain conditions and the development of economically viable models for farmers.
The project involves the development and testing of climate-resistant varieties of protein crops, the creation of integrated cultivation systems for complex agro-ecological conditions, the assessment of ecological benefits (carbon accumulation, improvement of soil conditions, preservation of biodiversity), as well as the development of digital decision-making support tools for farmers in mountainous areas. The initiative is coordinated by the Institute of Agriculture of the Carpathian Region of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The consortium also includes the University of Lincoln (Great Britain), the Lithuanian Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (Lithuania). The estimated duration of the project is 48 months, and the total budget is 6 million euros. The participants of the meeting discussed the key tasks, the structure of the future application, the distribution of roles between partners and agreed to work together on filling out the application form and then submitting a full application for the competition.
Source. Lviv Agrarian Chamber