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Why farm and field size matters: Exploring their role for food security and sustainable agriculture in South America

Objective

Global agricultural systems fail to meet food security objectives, are a major cause of global environmental degradation, and are currently undergoing a rapid scale transition. This transition mainly affects small-scale farmers, who are key to attaining food security as they constitute more than 80% of all farms and disproportionately contribute to food production and nutrition. Guiding the agricultural transition onto sustainable pathways that safeguard food security is thus important. Therefore, a sound understanding of the operational realities of farms and fields with respect to size, productivity, location factors, and socio-economic and environmental impacts is needed to develop targeted actions and policies, but is currently lacking especially for large spatial scales. FFSize will address this knowledge gap based on four work packages focussing on South America. WP1 will overlay novel data sets on farm and field size to quantify and map their relationship and use advanced statistical methods to identify determinants of their spatial patterns. WP2 will assess size-related differences in agricultural land-use intensity of farms and fields based on input, output, and system metrics and map intensity archetypes. WP3 will evaluate size-related environmental and socio-economic impacts of farms and fields by linking them to metrics such as land-cover change and nutritional value. WP4 will synthesise this action by mapping socio-ecological systems states to analyse trade-offs at the food security-sustainability nexus and outline potential pathways into preferred future states. FFSize will contribute substantially to the fields of land-system, sustainability, and food security science. It will have major policy relevance for current discussions on land reform, large-scale land acquisitions, and smallholder vulnerability to food security and climate change (cf. EC’s Horizon 2020 strategy and 2013 CAP reform) and has the potential to be transferred to other regions.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2017

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Coordinator

HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM FUR UMWELTFORSCHUNG GMBH - UFZ
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.

€ 225 352,80
Address
PERMOSERSTRASSE 15
04318 LEIPZIG
Germany

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Region
Sachsen Leipzig Leipzig
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
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.

€ 225 352,80

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