Bioeconomics assessment of barley chain:relevance and smart , sustainable , inclusive trigger effects in the short chain of food and non food prodcts-A project Explanation.

In the affirmation of the Sustainable Development Strategy, the agricultural production has a crucial role in the success of the bio-economy (Conway and Barbier, 2013). The European Commission adopted a strategic action plan called: “Innovate for sustainable growth: a Bio-economy for Europe” (OECD, 2011). The bio-economy will be one of the basic topics of the Horizon 2020 program. In this sense, very promising results are coming especially for the cycle of barley. Barley is a cultivation with large diffusion all around the world and with high capability of adaptation regarding to climate and soil variation (Asveld et al., 2011). Last year a University Network of Central Italy built a Research Project of National Interest entitled “Process and product innovation in the barley food chain for the improvement of quality and environmental sustainability of food and beverages”. The mean objective of the Project is to arrange a bioeconomic evaluation of the barley chain with a particular focus on proposals for the supply chain and to boost the role of barley for the initiation of bio-economic development processes at national and European level. In this sense, the paper represents a first contribution about a specific part of the research project and, moreover, aims to deliver an example at the academic level about the innovative opportunities of bioeconomic research field.