FEDERACIO DE COOPERATIVES AGRARIES DE CATALUNYA

Their core work

FCAC is the federation body representing agricultural cooperatives across Catalonia, one of Spain's most productive agri-food regions. Their day-to-day work involves supporting, aggregating, and giving voice to farming cooperatives on policy, market access, and technology adoption. In EU research projects, they function as a sector gateway: they bring real cooperative pilot sites, facilitate dissemination through their member network, and ensure that technologies are validated under actual agricultural and food-processing conditions. They are not a research organisation — they are the bridge that connects research teams to practicing farmers and food producers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

FCAC's H2020 engagement began in 2016 with a clear energy focus: the SCOoPE project centred on collective energy management, KPI benchmarking, and ICT-based monitoring tools for cooperative energy consumers such as crop drying and steam generation. In parallel, their AgriMax participation (also starting 2016 but running to 2021) pointed toward a different trajectory — circular bioeconomy, with biorefinery processing of agricultural and food-processing waste using advanced extraction and treatment technologies. Taken together, this suggests a transition from energy efficiency in cooperative settings toward valorizing waste streams as the dominant lens, consistent with broader EU bioeconomy policy shifts after 2018.

FCAC is moving from energy efficiency for cooperatives toward circular bioeconomy applications — particularly turning agricultural and food-processing waste into value through biorefinery approaches, which signals good fit for future projects in sustainable food systems and bio-based products.

How they like to work

FCAC never leads projects — they participate as partners or third parties, which is consistent with their identity as a sector federation rather than a technology developer or research institute. Their 50 unique consortium partners across just 2 projects indicates they join very large, multi-country consortia where their role is stakeholder engagement and network access, not technical leadership. Partnering with them means gaining a door into Catalan and Spanish agricultural cooperative networks, but the expectation should be end-user facilitation and dissemination rather than scientific or engineering contribution.

FCAC has engaged with 50 unique partner organisations across 16 countries through only 2 projects — figures that reflect participation in unusually large European consortia. Their network breadth is greater than their project count suggests, rooted in Catalonia but extending across the EU research landscape.

What sets them apart

Few organisations can offer what FCAC does: direct, institutionalised access to a large network of operational farming cooperatives in one of Europe's most active agri-food regions. For any project that needs real-world pilot sites, sector dissemination channels, or cooperative end-user input, FCAC provides the last mile between laboratory results and actual agricultural practice. Their dual presence in energy and food projects reflects the genuine cross-cutting needs of the cooperative sector and makes them a credible partner in both domains.

Highlights from their portfolio

• AgriMax
  FCAC's only funded project (EUR 195,750), running five years as a full participant in a technically sophisticated Innovation Action covering multi-feedstock biorefinery, advanced extraction, and food packaging from agri-food waste.
• SCOoPE
  Illustrates FCAC's energy management role within cooperatives — a Coordination and Support Action focused on ICT-based diagnosis tools and KPI benchmarking for collective energy users in the agricultural sector.