9 IRTA

Food and Agricultural Research Institute – IRTA
www.irta.cat/en

Team in O+

Dr Assumpció Antón. Assumpció is leading Task 6.3 LCA modelling and co-leading WP6 MODEL. In 1982, Assumpció became officer of the Agricultural Department of Generalitat of Catalunya. Since 1985 she is working as a researcher at the Food and Agricultural Research Institute, IRTA and from 2008 to 2016 she worked as an associate professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at University Rovira Virgili. Her area of expertise is the development and application of Life Cycle Assessment methodology in agriculture. Final goal of her work is the improvement of agricultural systems from an environmental point of view. To reach this goal Assumpció focused her research on the improvement of inventory collection (i.e. emissions modelling and databases) and in the development of Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methods mainly related to agricultural processes, i.e. land use, water consumption and toxicity due to pesticide application. http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Assumpcio_Anton

Dr Rafaela Cáceres. Rafaela is leading task 5.5 on peat research. Rafa became researcher at IRTA in 2000. She has been working in natural, and environmental friendly systems, for re-using and treating organic and liquid wastes in agriculture; the agronomic approach is always considered in order to boost the Circular Agriculture. She is specialist in the composting of organic waste in order to use the obtained compost as a growing media. In the last years, she has studied nitrification process within the composting that promotes the natural acidification of the compost. She has been coordinating the CLEANLEACH project (Eco-innovation program, European commission) since October 2013; in this moment, this project has entered in the Exploitation phase. Rafa has also been granted by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports for a sabbatical stay in the Institute of Environmental Engineering of Częstochowa (Poland). http://www.irta.cat/en/personal/rafaela-caceres-reyes/

 

 

Dr August Bonmatí.  August is an agricultural engineer, University of Lleida (UdL). Since 2008 he is a researcher at GIRO Joint Research Unit IRTA-UPC in the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA). His research is focused on the optimisation and development of new processing technologies for wastewater and organic wastes (manures, organic fractions of municipal solid waste, etc.). Energy and products recovery is the main topic of his research (anaerobic digestion, ammonia stripping, struvite precipitation, bio- electrochemical systems, etc.) http://www.researchgate.net/profile/August_Bonmati2

Erica Montemayor. Erica is currently a PhD Student at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and the Food and Agricultural Research Institute (IRTA). She is working with Dr. Assumpció Antón in WP6, Task 6.3 on Life Cycle Assessment of organic production systems, with special emphasis on biodiversity and soil quality impacts of organic agriculture, and LCAs of contentious and alternative inputs. She holds an official Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and an author of peer-reviewed papers as well as book chapters on sustainable agriculture and LCA.
Erica has vast international work experience including Environmental Consulting in Barcelona; 6 years as a biology, chemistry and physics teacher in secondary schools across London; and 1 year as a chemist in laboratories in Canada.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Erica_Montemayor

About The Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA)

The Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA)  is a public research institution, part of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and Environment of the Government of Catalonia. IRTA’s mission is to contribute to modernising, improving, boosting competitiveness, and fostering sustainable development in the sectors of: i) agriculture, ii) animal and plant production, iii) food technology, iv) agroforestry, v) aquaculture, vi) fisheries, vii) agro-food economy and vii) environment and global change, with the aim of consolidating a sustainable bio-based economy. IRTA has a portfolio of projects under way that are financed by the Institute itself, regional institutions, Spanish organisations or international ones, as the European Community and others. A key area of research at IRTA is Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, applied to agriculture. IRTA has been using LCA tool to improve the environmental performance of agricultural products and also have contributed to the refinement of the tool mainly for those impact categories related to agricultural processes i.e. land use, water consumption and pesticides toxicity. An important area within IRTA research field is the jointed agronomic and environmental approach of the agricultural production; the goal is to provide tools to manage properly these systems in order to promote the Circular Economy in the Agricultural sector.