INTERREG-SUDOE Dairital Project: Development of sustainable production systems in the traditional dairy sector of the SUDOE area

DAIRITAL was born out of the shared, inter-regional needs for technological and agri-food innovation within the traditional dairy production and processing sectors of the SUDOE region. Comprised of micro-enterprises and SMEs at risk of disappearing, the sector is located in rural inland areas, and the project will promote the implementation of sustainable, digitized production models in these regions. A Transnational Strategy will gather multidisciplinary solutions identified through experimentation, which will be implemented on a real-world scale in pilot projects (dairy farms with or without their own cheese production facilities) in SMEs in the rural SUDOE area. This will allow for an evaluation of the real economic, social, and environmental impact of implementing potential solutions to achieve sustainable and digital dairy production systems.

Finally, based on the knowledge gained from the pilot projects, a Transnational Action Plan will be developed, whose main mission will be to disseminate the knowledge generated. Along with a wide range of activities to ensure transferability, the Plan will serve as a support tool for the end beneficiaries, facilitating the implementation of the sustainable and/or digital solutions optimized in the project.

The solutions proposed in DAIRITAL seek to maximize the productive efficiency of these SMEs in the SUDOE region in a sustainable and digital way, fostering:

• 1) the circular economy (reuse of endogenous food waste and byproducts).
• 2) the implementation of sustainable agri-food technologies (production and processing systems).
• 3) digitization (computer technologies, spectroscopic technologies).
• 4) specialized training.

The interterritorial and multidisciplinary consortium, made up of 3 R&D centers, 1 SME, 3 associations and 1 government entity linked to the sector, hopes to improve the market positioning and employment prospects of the rural primary and secondary dairy sector, attracting youth entrepreneurship and preventing aging and depopulation of the rural inland territories of the SUDOE regions.