ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production

Project Information

SusCrop

Grant agreement ID: 771134

DOI

10.3030/771134

Project closed

EC signature date 4 October 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 30 June 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 15 151 516,00

EU contribution

€ 5 000 000,00

Coordinated by

FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SusCrop (ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2023-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

One of the Grand Societal Challenges of the 21st century is to ensure food and nutrient security for a growing population under climate change and pressure on natural resources.

Sustainable crop production needs to be secured and enhanced. Current food production methods utilise excess energy, water, pesticides and chemicals. New ways of sustainable crop production are necessary to increase productivity, reduce the amount of used chemicals and/or improve the quality of the crops. This will be crucial to maintain access to affordable safe and nutritious food for a healthy life, and to serve the increasing demand for industrially used biomass whilst keeping and improving a healthy environment, natural habitats and increasing biodiversity. Indeed all aspects of sustainability need to be covered: environmental, economic and social and cultural aspects.

Therefore, the main objective of the “ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop production“ (SusCrop) was to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of crop research, in particular in relation to crop production. Modern crop production must be addressed by taking into account the whole food value chain, crop diversity and resilience, resource use efficiency, nutrient recycling, ecosystem services, limiting negative environmental impacts, integrated pest management, reducing and re-using waste and achieving food and nutritional security. To address the current challenges described above, the SusCrop consortium:
a) implemented a joint call for proposals in the R&D&I area of sustainable crop production. The joint call was co-funded by the partners of the consortium and the European Commission (EC), and
b) implemented additional joint activities (funding and non-funding activities) that further contributed to:
• the harmonisation of data collection on sustainable cropping to deliver possibilities to build models and indices of sustainability and resilience, and
• the development of methods for assessing the sustainability and resilience of cropping systems at different levels (e.g. field, farm, landscape).

The Cofunded Call and the additional activities of SusCrop encouraged the interaction between different stakeholder including academia, the private sector, farmers and society to enhance impact, facilitate knowledge exchange and uptake of results to deliver measurable benefits to Sustainable Crop Production in Europe.

In addition, SusCrop provided strategic research directions for a sustainable crop production for the future in close collaboration with the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

At the beginning of the SusCrop project, a group of funding organisations of the SusCrop consortium has performed a joint call for proposals in the R&D&I area of sustainable crop production. The joint call was co-funded by the European Commission and addressed the following research topics:
I. Enhancement of predictive breeding technologies and development of new genotypes leading to new phenotypes and crop varieties for improvement of plant health, protection, production and resilience
II. Development and exploitation of novel integrated pest and crop management methods and practices
III. Improvement of resource-use efficiency of crops and cropping systems
IV. Systemic research on agricultural crops as part of an ecosystem including interactions between plants and other organisms (“the plant as a meta-organism”)
The Call was open for both fundamental and applied research.

With a total indicative funding volume of more than 16 mio € 13 research projects were selected for funding by the SusCrop Steering Committee of the co-funded Call. In September 2019 all projects were invited for a common Kick Off meeting accompanied by (i) communication and valorisation info sessions, (ii) a workshop on "sustainability and resilience assessment methods” and (iii) a workshop on “data collection and harmonisation”.

More information on the co-funded call and detail on the funded projects can be found here: https://www.suscrop.eu/call-information/1st-call.

The ERA-Net Cofund action SusCrop launched a second call in 2020 with a redefinition of the previous call topics and research priorities. The Call resulted in 8 further transnational research projects. During the remaining lifetime of the action, SusCrop also participated in two additional joint calls: (i) a trans-ERA-Net call with three other Cofund actions (SusAn, FACCE ERA-GAS, ICT-AGRI-FOOD) and (ii) a joint call with FACCE-JPI. The two joint calls resulted in the funding of 17 further projects.
In summary, the majority of funding organisations of the Cofund SusCrop have led to the selection of 38 funded projects with almost 300 research partners from 31 different countries and a total funding of more than 44 Mio€ funding.

In addition to the funding activities, SusCrop has also organised different workshops, seminars and scientific progress meetings for a diverse set of stakeholders to promote networking of key players in the field of sustainable crop production, stimulate novel interactions and facilitate communication and exchange of stakeholders incl. society.

Towards the end of SusCrop, the strategic core group of SusCrop has organised two additional expert workshops to discuss and identify research needs and priority areas for the future of sustainable crop production in Europe. The results, conclusions and recommendation of the strategic work can be downloaded in form of a white paper from the SusCrop webpage: https://www.suscrop.eu/news?backRef=7&news=Future_Research_Needs_in_Sustainable_Crop_Production.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Cofund action SusCrop initially aimed to launch two additional calls to further increase public funding for sustainable crop production. By implementing three additional calls for proposals, SusCrop has significantly gone beyond the initial target. As an example, SusCrop has recently published a summary of direct outcomes and potential impacts of the first 13 research projects for sustainable crop production:
https://www.suscrop.eu/call-information/1st-call
In addition to the initial 13 projects, the additional 25 research projects have not finished yet. Thus, over the next years such research projects will most likely deliver further important outcomes for sustainable crop production, crop and land management practices, biodiversity functions and on-farm applications.

Beyond new findings from research activities in the frame of the funding activities, the organised non-funding activities in form of workshops and seminars strongly involved diverse stakeholder and encourage their active participation and interaction with the R&D&I projects.

In addition, a continuous mapping of existing instruments and initiatives related to SusCrop as well as a research gap analysis provided the necessary base to elaborate future focus areas for sustainable crop production and improvement in two consecutive strategic expert workshops. The identified priority areas will be available as strong recommendations for future funding activities in related European initiatives and actions that will exist beyond the lifetime of SusCrop.

SusCrop Logo 2

SusCrop Logo 1