HORIZON-CL6-2027-02-FARM2FORK-01: AI-driven nutrient circularity for resilient urban and peri-urban agriculture

Europe’s farmers face growing water and nutrient scarcity, volatile fertiliser prices and pressure to cut pollution. Meanwhile, cities throw away large volumes of nutrient-rich food waste. We propose a circular “Fork-to-Farm” model that closes this loop. A digital platform will turn restaurant and food-service waste into tailored, locally produced nutrient inputs (compost, digestate and bio-based fertilisers) for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) — meaning vertical farms and greenhouses — and for nearby peri-urban farms.

The platform combines:

• AI-optimised waste logistics: forecasting waste volumes and composition, routing collection, and matching supply to farm demand.

• Digital nutrient and water management: sensors and decision-support tools that track nutrient content, substrate and irrigation water quality, so recovered inputs replace mineral fertilisers precisely and safely.

• Farmer-facing advisory tools: dashboards and recommendations that help growers adopt recovered nutrients, cut water use and recirculate effluents.

Please note: the platform described above is the technical solution to be developed within the project by the consortium’s technology partners — it is a concept to be built, not an existing product. Wedigital is seeking those technical partners through this event.

Contribution to expected outcomes

• Farmers’ access to digital tools and advice: growers get decision-support for managing nutrients and water under scarcity.

• Green transition and competitiveness: lower input costs and new local value chains make CEA and peri-urban farms more viable.

• Less pollution and less fertiliser dependency: waste stays out of landfill, nutrient run-off and emissions fall, and recovered nutrients replace imported mineral fertilisers.

The project aligns with the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, the European Water Resilience Strategy and Europe fit for the Digital Age. It will build on PRIMA and the Agriculture of Data partnership.

What Wedigital brings to the consortium

Wedigital is a horizontal support partner, not a provider of CEA or platform technology. DEC in EU-funded programmes is the purpose the company was built for, backed by 11 Horizon Europe / Erasmus+ / LIFE projects and 100+ partner organisations.

• Dissemination & Communication (DEC): we lead DEC work packages and have a strong Cluster 6 track record, including FER-PLAY (nutrient recovery), GUARDEN and BIOTRAILS (biodiversity).

• Exploitation: we develop exploitation strategies, business models and market-uptake pathways, including models for waste-to-nutrient service providers.

• Proposal writing: we co-write the Excellence and Impact sections, tying the concept tightly to the topic’s expected outcomes.

Partners we are looking for: CEA / vertical-farming and peri-urban agriculture specialists, food-waste valorisation partners (composting, anaerobic digestion, bio-based fertilisers), AI/digital-platform and sensor developers, and a coordinator building a FARM2FORK-01 consortium.