CARinata and CamelINA in Focus for Europe's Bio-Based Future

The European bioeconomy sector generates an annual turnover of around 2 trillion EUR with more than 17 million persons employed. However, in EU there is a lack of alternative crops, which could easily fit the existing rotations and produce valuable feedstocks for multiple end-uses. The diversity and diversification of farming systems can contribute to a sustainable European bioeconomy by securing stable revenues for farmers, lowering environmental negative impacts and increasing resilience to climatic, economic and biological risks. Carinata and camelina are perfect candidates to meet all these specific needs once integrated in agricultural systems with traditional staple crops. Camelina is a mature crop for European agriculture and the availability of winter and spring types makes it quite easily adapted to all European climates. Carinata is an emerging oilseed crop with high tolerance to heat and drought stress and can perfectly act as a late spring/summer double cropping in Mediterranean Europe as well as a main crop in marginal and poorly fertile soils with desertification risks. From both camelina and carinata different products could be obtained with a variety of potential uses: oil – as a feedstock for green chemistry; protein-rich cake - as animal feed ingredient directly or as protein concentrate, and a multitude of high added-value co-products, derived both from seed processing as well as from residual biomass.