News & Events

“We're here to listen to the sector's problems and find solutions together”. This was said by António Saraiva, executive director of InnovPlantProtect (InPP), who attended the eighth edition of the National Olive Oil Congress, held in Campo Maior and featured in the July edition of Voz do Campo magazine.

In the interview, António Saraiva highlighted the importance of olive growing, one of the most representative crops in the Mediterranean, and pointed out some of the major challenges currently facing the sector:

• A growing shortage of phytosanitary solutions: many tools are disappearing and effective alternatives are not always emerging.
• The long road between research and application in the field: the process of bringing a scientific solution to farmers can take around 10 years.
• Impacts of climate change and emerging pests, which make farming even more difficult.

Faced with these challenges, InPP is committed to developing new innovative solutions that are environmentally friendly and sustainable for farmers. CoLAB is looking for agents such as active substances and microorganisms capable of controlling diseases and boosting biostimulants, as well as investing in digital technologies that allow producers to detect crop problems early and increase the effectiveness of interventions.

Another point highlighted by the executive director is the need to speed up the transfer of knowledge to the field, through partnerships and commercial agreements that ensure that innovations actually reach farmers.

“We're here to listen to the sector's problems and find solutions together. We want to be close to farmers, associations and companies, because that's the only way we can develop effective and sustainable tools,” António Saraiva stressed.

The full interview is available in the July issue of Voz do Campo magazine, on newsstands now, and in the image below.

It's called PROSPER and it's a new European project that aims to transform European agriculture through the valorization of “orphan” legumes - resistant crops, little exploited, but with great potential to face the challenges of climate and food in the future.

The consortium, with total funding of around 5 million euros, brings together 27 partners from 13 European countries and Tunisia, including universities, research centers, companies and non-profit organizations in the agricultural sector. Among them are countries from the Mediterranean (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and France), Central Europe (Germany, Belgium, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania), Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden and Finland).

The aim of PROSPER is to test and validate new agricultural diversification strategies, adapted to different climates and social and economic contexts, promoting more sustainable, innovative practices that are adjusted to the needs of different agricultural realities.

InPP, PROSPER's partner, will be responsible for analyzing:

• Soil health and environmental impact
• Energy efficiency and waste management
• Nutritional quality of crops
• Fair valuation along the production chain

To do this, the InPP team will use advanced technologies, such as real-time sensors and geospatial analysis, which will help study soil health, carbon sequestration captured by crops, water management and biodiversity, among others.

PROSPER is co-created with the main players in the agricultural sector, ensuring that the solutions developed do not remain on paper: they will be practical, useful and transformative.

The project starts in September 2025. We are ready to embark on this journey towards a greener, fairer and more resilient agriculture.

Stay tuned for more news!

InnovPlantProtect (InPP) was present at the Science 2025 Meeting in Lisbon, at the Nova SBE Campus, to take part in the parallel session “Crop Protection for One Health, and Food and Environmental Sustainability”.

The Encontro Ciência took place from July 9 to 11 at the NOVA SBE Campus in Carcavelos, with the motto “Science, Innovation and Society”. Portugal's largest science and technology meeting was the stage for promoting and discussing the scientific, social, cultural and economic impact of research in Portugal, exploring the intersection between science, innovation and society, to inspire new ideas and foster transformative collaborations.

The director of the Data Management and Risk Analysis Department, Ricardo Ramiro, and the director of the New Biopesticides Department, Cristina Azevedo, presented some of the results of their work in this session co-moderated by the executive director, António Saraiva.

During the session, two important solutions for the agricultural sector, developed by our team, were presented:

• iCountPests - an innovative app that uses AI to detect and count pests accurately and quickly in photos of chromotropic traps.
• InPP 2 - a broad-spectrum biofungicide capable of fighting Botrytis cinerea, the fungus responsible for gray rot in tomatoes.

CoLAB MORE Colab - Collaborative Mountain Research Laboratory and Sfcolab - Collaborative Laboratory for Digital Innovation in Agriculture, were also present at the parallel session, as well as GREEN-IT, to discuss how science and innovation can tackle the challenges of climate change and promote more sustainable agricultural systems.