AGRO-TEXTILES – THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SCIENCE-SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT-ENVIRONMENT

Food and drink are some of the greatest traditions and pleasures of our society. Today we have access to an impressive variety and quality of food and drinks. The food sector is an indelible part of the social, economic and cultural edifice of Europe. But, like most progresses, this comes with challenges. The European food and drink industry wants to play its role as an active partner in addressing these challenges to ensure that Europe continues to have the highest quality and safest food in the world, taking care of the environment. Agricultural development is critically important to improving food security and nutrition. Major economic, social and environmental changes in agriculture around the world provide a starting point for understanding the issues surrounding sustainable agricultural development as a whole. The magnitude and complexity of the socio-economic context in the agro sector requires finding additional ways to adapt. In this context, the textile sector, respectively the field of technical textiles, through the potential of the functionalities, can make a special contribution to achieving a level of coherence between the field of functionalized materials destined for – environment - consumer health - sustainable development of agriculture. Technical textiles, a modern concept in the textile field, can be defined generically: industrial textiles/functional textiles/hi-tech textiles/textiles of the future, and are considered as change factors for all economic, social and infrastructure fields. Agro-textiles intelligently “manipulate” the micro-environment, helping growers to reproduce perfect growing conditions and protect crops from Mother Nature's less desirable forces, imposing themselves on performance, durability and functionality. The paper will present the role of agro-textiles - as a bridge between science and agriculture - in the system of complementary solutions for the development of a sustainable agriculture in the context of the circular economy.