CERZOO S.R.L.

Their core work

CERZOO is an agricultural and livestock research centre based in Piacenza, Italy, operating experimental farm facilities used for field trials and on-farm research. Their practical contribution to EU projects is infrastructure and real-world testing environments — they host trials for industrial crops, natural fibre plants, and climate-neutral farming practices. They sit at the interface between agronomy research and working farms, which makes them valuable for projects that need to move from lab results to field validation. Think of them as the place where a bioeconomy or livestock concept gets tested on actual soil and animals before it scales.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first projects (2017 onward), CERZOO was embedded in bioeconomy work — industrial crops, hemp, miscanthus, and plant fibres for biocomposites and biorefineries. Their most recent engagement (ClieNFarms, 2022-2025) shifts toward climate-neutral farming, multicriteria assessment, and integrated livestock-crop systems. The trajectory moves from supplying biomass feedstock for industry toward making existing farms measurably more sustainable — a clear pivot from "grow new crops for bio-industry" to "decarbonise the farm itself".

They are moving toward climate-neutral agriculture and farm-level sustainability assessment, making them relevant to anyone building a Horizon Europe project on Mission Soil, livestock emissions, or carbon farming.

How they like to work

CERZOO never coordinates and never enters consortia as a named beneficiary — in all three projects they participate as a third party, typically linked to a larger Italian academic partner. Despite that narrow role, they have been exposed to 86 unique partners across 18 countries, meaning they plug into large pan-European consortia rather than small bilateral projects. Partnering with them is straightforward when you need Italian field-trial capacity without the overhead of a full consortium member.

Connected to 86 distinct partners across 18 European countries through three large consortia. Their footprint is Italian-anchored but the consortia themselves are pan-European in scope.

What sets them apart

Most Food & Agriculture participants in H2020 are universities or technology SMEs — CERZOO is neither. They are a dedicated experimental farm operation embedded in larger research ecosystems, which means they can host real field trials on working agricultural land. That combination (working farm + research discipline + pan-EU project exposure) is rare and hard to replicate, exactly what consortia need when a deliverable depends on "demonstrate this under real farming conditions in Southern Europe".

Highlights from their portfolio

• GRACE
  Flagship BBI JU project on growing miscanthus and hemp on marginal land for biorefineries — puts CERZOO inside the European industrial-crops value chain.
• ClieNFarms
  Their most recent and most forward-looking engagement — climate-neutral farms with multicriteria assessment, positioning them for Horizon Europe's climate and soil missions.
• SSUCHY
  Bridges agriculture and advanced materials: plant fibre preforms for structural biocomposites, an unusual cross-sector topic for a livestock-oriented research centre.