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Multi-assessment of alternative fertilisers for promoting local sustainable value chains and clean ecosystems

Project description

Engaging the full value chain to promote alternative fertilisers

Fertilisers are important for feeding the world’s growing population. However, conventional fertilisers threaten the environment and the sustainability of Europe’s food system, which depends on imports from third countries. By 2030, the EU is committed to reducing the use of conventional fertilisers by 20 % and nutrient losses by 50 %. Fertilisers made from secondary raw materials like biowaste, sewage sludge and manure can help achieve these EU targets, but they are currently being held back by insufficient information about their value, technical viability and legislation. To boost awareness, the EU-funded FER-PLAY project will bring together key players from the entire alternative fertiliser value chain. It will map different value chains, choose the most promising ones and then evaluate their impacts.

Objective

Fertilisation is key to feeding the growing world population, yet the most common fertilisation scheme based on conventional fertilisers poses threats to the environment (e.g. eutrophication caused by nutrient leaching) and sustainability of the EU food system (due to high dependence on fertiliser imports from third countries). Thus, among the key EU political priorities is to reduce by 20% the use of conventional fertilisers by 2030 and to decrease nutrient losses by 50%.
A promising solution for this aim are alternative fertilisers produced from recovered nutrients from secondary raw materials (e.g. bio-waste, sewage sludge). However, their wide scale deployment is hindered by lack of awareness about alternative fertilisation, concerns regarding their technical viability and the disparity of legislations that creates a state of uncertainty.
In this context, FER-PLAY is a comprehensive approach to gather, harmonise, select and complement the knowledge on alternative fertiliser value chains and diffuse it to promote the wide-scale production and application of alternative fertilisers with best environmental, social and economic performance as well as technical and regulatory viability. Thus, FER-PLAY employs a unique methodology for mapping the value chains, select the most promising ones and assess their impacts. FER-PLAY engages key stakeholders in co-creation of results and broadly disseminates them.
The consortium gathers key players from the whole value chain: (1) alternative fertiliser producers from all the main types of secondary raw materials (producers of digestate- 183 members, of compost- 120 members and of struvite), (2) entities representing conventional (1.5M members), organic (100,000 members) and young (200,000 members) farmers, (3) a Pan-European network with +100 members representing public administrations, supported by (4) waste valorisation and agriculture research institutes, (5) market strategists and (6) communication experts.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-CSA - HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL6-2021-ZEROPOLLUTION-01

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Coordinator

ASOCIACION EMPRESARIAL CENTRO TECNOLOGICO DE LA ENERGIA Y DEL MEDIO AMBIENTE DE LA REGION DE MURCIA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 301 125,00
Address
CALLE SOFIA, NUM. 613 POLIGONO INDUSTRIAL CABEZO B
30353 Cartagena
Spain

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Region
Sur Región de Murcia Murcia
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 301 125,00

Participants (15)

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