CoopVitiLoop

• Total project budget: 151.982,69€

• Start Date: 01/06/2022

  End Date: 31/12/2024

In the Mediterranean region, the Catalan wine sector is one of the most important: it has more than 42,000 hectares of surface area registered in the Catalan Denominations of Origin (DO), almost 8,400 winegrowers and more than 600 bottling cellars, for a production of 3.1 million hectolitres.

The management of a significant part of the waste and by-products generated (pruning residues, production waste, wastewater, and sludge) is carried out externally and centrally, with an associated economic and environmental cost and without considering the potential of these raw materials as a fertiliser product once they have been correctly treated.

Nowadays, alternatives are being explored to improve the sustainability of the processes and contribute to new circular economy models. In this sense, composting is a robust and validated alternative for the self-management of organic solid waste and by-products, but its practice is not widespread in the wine sector.

The main objective of this Operational Group is to close the carbon cycle in the wine sector by optimising the co-composting of waste and by-products obtained from grape harvesting, wine processing and wastewater treatment for subsequent application as biofertiliser/organic amendment.

Through this study it will be possible to demonstrate the environmental and economic benefits related to the self-management of organic waste from this sector, and thus encourage farmers and winegrowers to use organic fertilisers from these by-products.

Project funded through Operation 16.01.01 (Cooperation for innovation) through the Rural Development Programme of Catalonia 2014-2022. Coordinated by the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Catalonia and with the participation of Cevipe and Covides.

Order ARP/133/2021, of 20 May, approving the regulatory bases for aid for cooperation for innovation through the promotion of the creation of operational groups of the European Innovation Partnership on agricultural productivity and sustainability and the implementation of innovative pilot projects by these groups, and Resolution ACC/1660/2021, of 27 May, calling for the aforementioned aid