August 2026—Four years of EU-China collaboration culminate in a two-day showcase where discarded food crop residues become biodegradable plastics, sustainable proteins, and biobased chemicals.
What if the leftovers from agriculture and food processing could help solve the world’s plastic crisis, feed a growing population, and put money back in farmers’ pockets? On 27–28 October 2026, the historic Sant Pau in Barcelona will bring that question to life as it hosts “Residues to Resources – Innovating High-Value Solutions from Agri-Food Side-Streams,” the concluding event of the AgriLoop project.
The conference marks the completion of four years of international collaboration spanning Europe and China, uniting farmers, industry leaders, researchers, and policymakers around the concept that agricultural residues are not a waste, they are an opportunity.
“We’ve built an economy that treats agri-food side-streams as the end of the story—what’s left behind from the field to the food processing floor is a waste to be disposed of or only good for low value use,” said Nathalie Gontard, AgriLoop’s European Coordinator and Research Director at INRAE in France. “AgriLoop rewrites that. A tomato skin, a spent stalk, a pressing residue from processing, each one can become a material, a protein, a molecule with real worth. After four years, we’re not talking about what might be possible, we’re showing what already is.”
From proteins grown by wastewater microbes to biodegradable plastics made from plant residues, the programme shows how these technologies are advancing in the lab and moving out into commercial use. However, this is also more than a science showcase with the event placing the farmers and the industries that support them at the centre of the conversation. Interactive workshops will tackle the practical questions that matter most: How do we make new value chains work for both industry and farmers? What will it take to scale novel proteins responsibly? And how do we address the growing challenge of plastic particles in our agricultural soils?
A highlight includes a live YouTube Q&A with farmers and agroecology stakeholders, following the documentary “A farm fighting to eliminate plastic with scientists tackling the challenge” created by French journalist Pierre Girard.
“Europe and China face the same pressures with millions of tonnes of underutilised residues, a rising need for protein, and soils we cannot afford to pollute with plastic,” said Aimin Shi, AgriLoop’s Chinese Coordinator and Principal Investigator at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IFST-CAAS). “The challenges we’re tackling don’t stop at borders, and neither do the solutions. Bringing together researchers and farmers from China and Europe means we learn faster, and what we’ve built is something neither side could have reached alone. Barcelona is where we share it.”
Featuring voices from INRAE, CAAS institutes, leading universities and industry experts from across France, China, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Croatia, Greece, and beyond, the conference offers a unique chance to connect across borders and disciplines.
The conference is designed for industry professionals, farmers, end users, policymakers, and researchers—anyone ready to help drive global change. Sessions run across both days and wrap up with roundtable discussions, farewell games, and evening networking drinks. Sessions will be held in English, except for the live YouTube session which will be predominantly in French with some elements translated. Registration is required, and lunch is provided free of charge for all registered attendees.
> The full agenda and registration details are available here
