On 11 March 2026, representatives of the Biotechnical Faculty attended the 53rd Congress of the Slovenian Cooperative Union titled “The Country Needs the Countryside”, held in Portorož, Slovenia.
The congress gathered a wide range of stakeholders from the Slovenian agri-food sector, including agricultural cooperatives, farmers, representatives of the food industry, policymakers, and researchers. Discussions focused on the current challenges of the agricultural and food system, the resilience of domestic food supply chains, and the need for stronger cooperation between producers, cooperatives, industry, and consumers.
During one of the roundtable discussions titled “Slovenian agri-food system at a crossroads,” Prof. Dr. Aleš Kuhar and other participants discussed several pressing challenges facing the agri-food sector, including structural weaknesses in supply chains, market pressures, and sustainability-related challenges that increasingly affect production systems.
The EENOVA project was presented at the event through an EENOVA roll-up and dissemination leaflets. This allowed participants to become aware of another important aspect of the future development of agri-food value chains, namely energy efficiency, renewable energy integration, and sustainable resource use. A notable example of cooperation in this context is the agreement between Agricultural Cooperative Tolmin and Planika Dairy to establish a community self-supply energy scheme, demonstrating a practical example of collaboration and energy resilience within the agri-food sector.
The topics discussed during the congress are closely related to the objectives of the EENOVA project, particularly regarding the need to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the agri-food sector in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical context.
