Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SusCrop (ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2018-01-01 do 2019-02-28
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) is 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) implements a joint call for proposals in the R&D area of sustainable crop production. The joint call is co-funded by the partners of the consortium and the European Commission (EC), and
b) implements additional joint activities (funding and non-funding activities) that will further contribute to:
• the harmonisation of data collection on sustainable cropping to deliver possibilities to build models and indices of sustainability and resilience, and
• the develop 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 will also encourage 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.
Additionally it will provide a strategic direction 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).
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) is 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) implements a joint call for proposals in the R&D area of sustainable crop production. The joint call is co-funded by the partners of the consortium and the European Commission (EC), and
b) implements additional joint activities (funding and non-funding activities) that will further contribute to:
• the harmonisation of data collection on sustainable cropping to deliver possibilities to build models and indices of sustainability and resilience, and
• the develop 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 will also encourage 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.
Additionally it will provide a strategic direction 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).
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 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 Cofounded Call. In September 2019 all projects will be 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.
A second call for research projects (without EC co-funding) in under preparation and planned to be launched at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020.
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 Cofounded Call. In September 2019 all projects will be 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.
A second call for research projects (without EC co-funding) in under preparation and planned to be launched at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020.
SusCrop aims to further increase public funding for sustainable crop production by launching at least two additional calls for proposals in addition the Co-funded Call. This will strongly intensify collaboration across the relevant sectors and countries involved.
Beyond new findings from research activities in the frame of the funding activities, the organised non-funding activities in form of workshops and seminars will strongly involve diverse stakeholder and encourage their active participation and interaction with the R&D projects.
In addition, a continuous mapping of existing instruments and initiatives related to SusCrop as well as a research gap analysis will provide necessary strategic directions in the future for a sustainable crop production and will work in close collaboration with the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI).
Beyond new findings from research activities in the frame of the funding activities, the organised non-funding activities in form of workshops and seminars will strongly involve diverse stakeholder and encourage their active participation and interaction with the R&D projects.
In addition, a continuous mapping of existing instruments and initiatives related to SusCrop as well as a research gap analysis will provide necessary strategic directions in the future for a sustainable crop production and will work in close collaboration with the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI).