Com4AgriPlant: Comics for Promoting Plant-based Agriculture

Com4AgriPlant is a European project born by the joint work of six partners from five European countries and funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. The project responds to the lack of promotion of plant-based production and consumption on the national and European level, the lack of sustainability competences of different adult educators/counsellors/lecturers who have not many opportunities to gain this type of knowledge and skills; and the lack of knowledge about the benefits of plant-based production and consumption on the side of food producers (farmers and other producers) and end consumers. Recently, a growing number of experts and responsive consumers have started talking about plant-based agriculture. In fact, thanks to an increased attention on the impact of animal farming on the environment, and more concerns about food safety, public health and biodiversity, plant-based agriculture seems to have become a concrete alternative to large-scale industrial production of food, other than being an important way to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Plant-based farming can be both small-scale and large-scale and includes a large range of different practices such as crop rotation, soil conservation, optimising water use and many other organic and sustainable cultivation practices. Similarly, in recent years, there has been an increasing demand for plant-based food and plant-based diets have also become increasingly popular as awareness of their health and environmental benefits has similarly grown. A plant-based diet is the consumption of plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds as the main source of nutrition. Plant-based diets can vary in strictness, from completely vegan (excluding all animal products) to eating small amounts of animal products such as fish or dairy. Still, achieving the climate ambitions requires a paradigm shift in the agri-food sector, and includes challenging current status quo, which proved not to deliver on sustainability goals.