INAGRO

Inagro has more than 50 years of work experience in the province of West-Flanders as a center for research and consultancy in agri- and horticulture.

In the beginning the focus was especially on industrial crops, where during the early sixties the research was extended with vegetables for industry. Today, research is conducted in virtually all agricultural crops. Since the mid-90s, the research field also extended to social issues like landscape quality, education, biodiversity, landscape integration, water quality, energy saving and renewable energy, ... In total Inagro employs about 160 people of which about 50 with university education.

Inagro has been partner in several Interreg projects and the latest is the Interreg IVb NWE project “ARBOR”, where pilots for multifunctional use of SRC were installed.

We have a strong interest and expertise built up in production and use of biomass. Based on the knowledge gathered in the ARBOR project farmers will be given advice on how to implement these woody elements on their farm. Exchange of this knowledge will be also very useful in other partner regions where similar goals are put forward. We will work with local farmers, land owners and other stakeholders to build partnerships and develop the local biomass production chain and improve the knowledge by demonstrations, advising and guidance.

The development of a “center of excellence for woody biomass” at Inagro (where the whole chain is demonstrated from planting till combustion) will be a very important tool in this. Also the pilots of SRC set up in ARBOR will be useful for demonstration and further practical research. For this reason there is no need to install new pilots.

As wood chip quality and emissions from wood heating is a very actual topic, we want to improve the knowledge on this aspect and make recommendations on wood quality and burning techniques. Further we want to focus on the mechanical harvest, optimizing of the drying process and economic assessment.

Inagro
Ieperseweg 87
8800 Rumbeke
Belgium
+32 (0)51/273200
www.inagro.be