Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CropBooster-P (Preparatory action to Boost Global Crop Yield for Food & Nutrition Security and fueling a Bioeconomy)
Période du rapport: 2020-05-01 au 2022-04-30
Sustainably increasing global crop productivity will be central in meeting some of the greatest challenges facing human kind: How will we sustainably feed 9.7 billion people by 2050, while realizing the required transition from a fossil economy towards a bio-economy in order to mitigate and possibly reverse the effects of global climate change? Additionally, how can we provide new crops cultivars adapted to the constraints imposed across vast areas by climate change? More than a doubling of global crop productivity is expected to be required to produce enough plant biomass to achieve food and nutrition security, as well as to meet the demands of a future bioeconomy and a competitive land use.
Any increase in crop production must be achieved without any loss of nutritional quality to achieve full Food Security and to satisfy the nutritional aspects of a healthy diet. In addition, future agriculture will require crops that combine sustainability, the efficient use of scarce resources like mineral nutrients and water, the preservation of the Earth’s biodiversity, and a high resilience to adverse climate conditions. In order to meet these challenging demands, our current crop plants will have to be re-designed and a “future proof” profiling is urgently needed.
With a multitude of possible crops and genetic changes, combined with multiple environmental changes, policy and societal challenges, progress could be mired in a seemingly impenetrable complexity. CropBooster-P has address this by identifying priorities and opportunities to adapting and boosting productivity to the environmental and societal changes. Our main objective was to produce a Roadmap, which is quantitative evaluation of the most promising practical approaches and a blueprint for a future research program to exploit these approaches to achieve a sustainable food supply in the near future.
Any increase in crop production must be achieved without any loss of nutritional quality to achieve full Food Security and to satisfy the nutritional aspects of a healthy diet. In addition, future agriculture will require crops that combine sustainability, the efficient use of scarce resources like mineral nutrients and water, the preservation of the Earth’s biodiversity, and a high resilience to adverse climate conditions. In order to meet these challenging demands, our current crop plants will have to be re-designed and a “future proof” profiling is urgently needed.
With a multitude of possible crops and genetic changes, combined with multiple environmental changes, policy and societal challenges, progress could be mired in a seemingly impenetrable complexity. CropBooster-P has address this by identifying priorities and opportunities to adapting and boosting productivity to the environmental and societal changes. Our main objective was to produce a Roadmap, which is quantitative evaluation of the most promising practical approaches and a blueprint for a future research program to exploit these approaches to achieve a sustainable food supply in the near future.
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.
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.
The CropBooster-P project has drafted a comprehensive strategic research agenda outlining our options to future proof our crops. Future proofing entails re-designing major European crop species to increase their yield, sustainability and climate resilience. In addition, the project has developed an Implementation Plan to implement and execute the research agenda.
The improved crop plants that the strategic research agenda will produce will provide the muscle to power the ambitions of the Green Deal, the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the UN’s SDGs and more. We need to prepare for the future and be sure that climate resilience and food security are built in to our agricultural and blue economy bases. This will deliver the greener, healthier, progressive future we hope for. This goal can only be realized by a large-scale, international research cooperation.
We call for international action to execute the strategic research agenda and propose a pan-European research initiative, the CropBooster Program, to mobilize the European plant research community, funders, industry, policy makers, governments and other stakeholders to face the challenge.
In a next step towards this goal, we have established a new EPSO Working Group "Future Proofed Crops" to serve as a basis for the development of a novel EU Partnership in the framework of Horizon Europe. This novel Partnership, with the provisional name "Partnership for Future Proofed Crops" is envisioned to execute the CropBooster Program to deliver the blueprints for future elite crop varieties to the European breeding industry.
The improved crop plants that the strategic research agenda will produce will provide the muscle to power the ambitions of the Green Deal, the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the UN’s SDGs and more. We need to prepare for the future and be sure that climate resilience and food security are built in to our agricultural and blue economy bases. This will deliver the greener, healthier, progressive future we hope for. This goal can only be realized by a large-scale, international research cooperation.
We call for international action to execute the strategic research agenda and propose a pan-European research initiative, the CropBooster Program, to mobilize the European plant research community, funders, industry, policy makers, governments and other stakeholders to face the challenge.
In a next step towards this goal, we have established a new EPSO Working Group "Future Proofed Crops" to serve as a basis for the development of a novel EU Partnership in the framework of Horizon Europe. This novel Partnership, with the provisional name "Partnership for Future Proofed Crops" is envisioned to execute the CropBooster Program to deliver the blueprints for future elite crop varieties to the European breeding industry.