The need to link innovation and sustainability in the primary sector was underlined by the Minister of Rural Development and Food, Lefteris Avgenakis, during his speech at an event on the topic of “Cultivating the Seeds of Innovation” held at the Agricultural University of Athens.

With this, as he pointed out, “we will manage to reduce inputs and save resources, because this way we will manage to increase harvests, this way we will make the sector sustainable and attractive for new investments”.

Speaking about technology in the primary sector, Mr. Avgenakis noted that will help reduce production costs but also in the production of qualitatively superior products.

He pointed out that the use of innovations in the agricultural sector will “enhance its overall sustainability” which is a key issue today as “the climate and energy crisis make the work of producers more and more difficult in recent years”.

In his report for the next day in the primary sector the Minister of Rural Development and Food said that “the fat cow days of the past, when we recklessly spent resources, financial and environmental, are gone”.

He added that YPAAT will be an ally of any action that “promotes the innovation and sustainability of the agri-food sector” which are “key pillars of the Ministry’s strategy”.

He also welcomed the declaration of Heraklion as the new UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy underlining that it “belongs to the very closed club of only 7 cities that achieved something similar this year”.

For his part, the head of EIT FOOD hub Greece and co-founder of IDGC, Michalis Stagos, pointed out that the whole effort started about two years ago as a Hub. “We have worked all these years quite hard on this “journey” to develop an ecosystem of innovation” he said adding that “with the Agricultural University and other companies we have created a company that will bring surplus value and real solutions”. The said company, as he said, operates “anonymously” and has as its main objective the transfer of knowledge and innovation to the final recipients of the primary sector, the farmers.

“The Agricultural University is part of the efforts of the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food to make the Greek farmer more efficient and sustainable,” said the vice-chancellor of the Agricultural University of Athens, Thomas Bartzanas, who presented the three pillars of the program which are digital transformation, primary sector sustainability and innovation/new technologies.