Researchers from twelve countries are concerned with the question of how farmers can use these so-called marginal agricultural areas with little effort by growing industrial plants in an economically profitable manner. The Department of Renewable Raw Materials in the Bioeconomy at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart is one of 26 cooperation partners in the bioeconomy project funded by the EU with around six million euros. With almost 400,000 euros in funding, the project is one of the research heavyweights in Hohenheim. The EU project “Marginal lands for Growing Industrial Crops: Turning a burden into an opportunity”, or MAGIC for short, is intended to remedy this. For more than three years, scientists from twelve European countries have been working on the question of how these areas can be used in an economically and ecologically sustainable way through the cultivation of so-called industrial plants.