Apply for Test Farms and validate your product with farmers!
Test Farms links agricultural startups with farmers and testing-land.
Through enabling these links EIT Food wants to help innovative agritech ideas to validate and test their products and services, showcase their business to customers and investors and finally support the technological transformation in European agriculture.
This year, EIT Food is offering Test Farms program to the following applicants:
RIS startups - incorporated companies from the following countries:
EU Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain.
Horizon Europe Associated Countries*: Montenegro, Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine.
Outermost Regions: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique, Mayotte and Saint-Martin (France), the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), and the Canary Islands (Spain).
Non-RIS startups - Startups registered in one of the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Kingdom
*These third countries, which are all listed in the European Innovation Scoreboard, will be fully eligible for the EIT RIS, following the successful conclusion of individual Horizon Europe Association Agreements.
Participation in the Test Farms program as well as financial subgrant to support testing needs will be available under specific conditions for eligible RIS startups. Non-RIS startups cannot receive the subgrant, however they will be given the possibility to join the program and benefit from the match-making and expert support provided by EIT Food. The cost of these services is 2500 EUR.
Full information on eligibility, selection criteria and commitment is available in Terms and Conditions of the programme (update on 04.04.2022).
Benefits
Test Farms programme is designed to link startups or individuals to validate their agricultural solutions (prototypes) with farmers or agricultural/pasture land to do a pilot project.
Program outline
Application period: March 20th to April 30th 2023
Evaluation and selection of program participants: May 4th to May 16th 2023
Announcement of the results (pre-selection for farmer matching): May 18th, 2023
Match-making event: May 19 to June 20, 2023 - Shortlisted startups will be invited to join one of the match-making events, where they will meet with farmers, evaluate the possibility of testing their innovative solutions on their premises and together create a plan for testing the technology.
Testing phase: July 2023 - July 2024 - Startups test their solution on the premises of the farmer/test field according to the plan created during the match-making event.
Demo Day: July 2023 - July 2024 - Following the testing, selected startups together with farmers will organise a Demo Day for local farmers/clients to attend, test the solution and possibly buy the product/service.
Applications
Before applying, please read carefully Terms and Conditions of the programme (update on 04.04.2022).
Applications for the 2023 cohort are open from the 20th of March till the 30th of April 2023.
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