The project knew several specific objectives:
Specific Objective 1 "MAPPING" was to compile a basic toolbox of promising transferable strategies, methods and technologies for a sustainable improvement of plant yield to achieve food security. This included mapping, assessing, and prioritizing (through desk studies) those computational models, methods and innovations that enable the improvement of plant resource-use efficiency, yield, and the capacity to adapt to climate change, as well as plant nutritional quality of land and aquatic crops. The outcome of this exercise has formed the basis for a workshop with a Stakeholder Group representing academia, industry, farmers and end-users / citizens. Their input and insights has led to the identification of transferable strategies and technologies across crops, as well as indicated trends and enablers for smaller or underdeveloped crops that hold potential. Promising improvements have been aligned with sustainability objectives to deliver a research toolbox providing directions and goals for future plant research in Europe.
Specific Objective 2 "ASSESSING AND SELECTING' was to assess the economic, social, and environmental impact of the strategies developed under Specific Objective 1, taking into account potential for increased yields, superior nutritional quality, and sustainability. This has been achieved through a combination of expert panels, literature review, data synthesis, and a workshop integrating and reviewing all obtained data. The approach taken was to involve insights from key actors at each stage across the food-system considering economic, social, and environmental impacts of the future-proofing strategies. These actors were subsequently be brought together to provide a food-system analysis in an concluding integrating workshop.
Specific Objective 3 "STRATEGY AND ROADMAP" was to develop an implementation strategy and roadmap for future-proofing our food system by involving social actors – academia/researchers, end-users/citizens, policy makers, industry/businesses, and agriculture/farming communities - in key steps of the project. In this way we have considered the values, needs, and expectations of society associated with novel technologies for increasing crop yield and nutritional quality in future agriculture. This led to developing appropriate strategies to improve public awareness and trust which has to ensure a full understanding and uptake of novel technologies relative to plant improvement and nutrition security.
Finally, the main deliverable of the CropBooster-P project was compiled; the White Paper, or Roadmap, describing the route to improved crop yields in Europe which is the overall proposal to future-proof Europe’s crops. This roadmap consists of 2 main pillars; the Research Agenda and the Implementation Plan describing the modus operandi of a large-scale pan-European research program, referred to as “The CropBooster Program”, which is proposed to executed the Research Agenda in the near future.
The results of the CropBooster-P project have been published on different platforms and for different audiences: For the academic community a number of 22 scientific publications were drafted, of which currently 11 have been accepted for publication in a number of leading scientific journals. Also, scientific presentations were given at 12 international scientific meetings and events. Also 11 Workshops have been organized, partly for a scientific audience, and partly for a layman audience. Also for non-expert stakeholders, a number of general presentations were held, and specific content was produced for social media, like video's on YouTube in 4 different EU languages. In addition, we issued Newsletters directed at an audience of professionals in the field (farmers, breeders) and we used social media, especially LinkedIn and Twitter to communicate to all our stakeholders in general.
