Living labs

Co-creating Solutions With Farmers and Value-Chain Actors – Final Results

Over the course of the project, CARINA’s Living Labs brought together farmers, cooperatives, advisers, industry partners and policymakers to collaboratively design and test sustainable cropping systems based on camelina and carinata.

Active across Europe and North Africa, these Living Labs created a space where regional actors could:

explore how the crops perform under real farming conditions,
discuss potential bio-based applications,
examine sustainability implications,
and identify policy and market opportunities and barriers.

Living Lab event in Agriculture Research Station in Dłoń (ARS Dlon), University of Life Sciences Poznań, 23rd June 2024

A Wide-Reaching Network

Living Labs were first launched in France, Italy and Spain, led respectively by ARVALIS, UNIBO and Spanish Co-ops, and later voluntarily extended by the Consortium to Morocco, Tunisia, Poland and Serbia, led by ICARDA, INRAT, PULS and IFVNCS. This voluntary extension more than doubled the number of activities originally foreseen and brought a wider range of pedoclimatic and socio-economic contexts into the discussion.

By the end of the project, 20 Living Lab activities had been held in 7 countries, generating 534 participant attendances. Sessions combined knowledge-transfer with participatory formats such as round tables, field visits, interactive surveys and industrial visits. In France, Italy and Spain, these activities also included visits to biorefineries, giving farmers, cooperatives and other stakeholders direct insight into how camelina and carinata are transformed into oils, meals and other bio-based products. In the map you can find information on carried-out living labs.

Interactive map not displaying correctly? You can access the map directly on ArcGIS Online here.

Key Insights From the Final Phase

Across the seven national processes, a consistent picture emerged:

Camelina is closer to practical deployment than carinata, thanks to its low-input profile, drought tolerance and flexibility in rotations, intermediate cropping and marginal land.
Carinata offers valuable non-food oil and biomass, but its longer cycle, cold sensitivity and pest pressure mean it needs further local validation before wider uptake.
Agronomic innovation alone is not enough. Stakeholders repeatedly stressed the need for reliable buyers, fair prices, risk-sharing mechanisms and simplified certification before farmers commit significant land.
Cooperatives and producer organisations are well placed to aggregate production, coordinate logistics and negotiate with processors, a role clearly demonstrated in Spain and called for by stakeholders in Italy.
Market diversification supports long-term resilience. Beyond Sustainable Aviation Fuel and other biofuels, Living Lab participants pointed to animal feed, omega-3 enriched food, nutraceuticals, functional ingredients, biomaterials, bioherbicides, bioinsecticides and biostimulants as further outlets for full biomass valorisation.
No single model fits every country. Sowing dates, varieties and crop combinations had to be adapted to local rotations and climate, from double-cropping windows in France to spring/winter comparisons in Poland and integrated crop-input trials in Serbia.

Spanish Living Lab in Kimitec’s facilities/biorefinery, November 2025

Looking Ahead

The knowledge gathered through the Living Labs fed directly into country-specific roadmaps, business-oriented approaches and recommendations to support stakeholders interested in adopting and scaling camelina and carinata systems. CARINA has built a lasting network of farmers, cooperative advisers, researchers, companies and institutions able to act as multipliers for the project’s results, and a solid basis for future replication of camelina- and carinata-based systems across a wider range of European and North African farming systems.