HORIZON-CL6-2027-03-GOVERNANCE-01: Resilience in horticulture - 2 Use Cases

We propose to contribute through 2 Use Cases addressing sanitary, environmental and geopolitical risks affecting horticultural and greenhouse production.

1. Greenhouse growers’ vulnerability to energy-related environmental, economic and geopolitical crises

Heating represents a critical dependency for many greenhouse production systems, making farms particularly exposed to energy-price volatility, supply disruptions and geopolitical shocks. Astredhor will explore and assess renewable and alternative energy solutions for greenhouse heating, considering their technical feasibility, economic implications and contribution to farm resilience. The objective will be to identify practical strategies that reduce dependence on fossil energy while improving growers’ capacity to anticipate and cope with future energy crises.

2. Sanitary crises linked to plant protection product contamination in the flower and ornamental plant sector

It will analyse how contamination events and concerns over residues can affect growers and propagate along the value chain, including wholesalers, florists and consumers. Astredhor could contribute to identifying vulnerabilities, assessing prevention and crisis-management practices, and testing solutions to reduce risks and strengthen the capacity of horticultural producers and downstream operators to anticipate and respond to such events.

Together, these cases will provide real-life horticultural settings for analysing vulnerabilities, testing preventive and crisis-management strategies, and assessing their costs, benefits and potential for uptake by growers and other value-chain actors.