Agriculture and Rural Development

AGRIRESEARCH FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES

AND ORGANIC FARMINGWhy do research and innovation support ecological approaches and organic farming?Agriculture and forestry have to meet the changing needs of society both in terms of consumption and with regards to the environmental issues related to primary production (e.g. biodiversity, habitats, water quality and quantity, cli-mate change, air quality). A deeper understanding of eco-logical principles is changing perceptions on the functioning of primary production systems and will make it possible to use ecosystem services to benefit sustainable and resilient land use systems without jeopardising profitability. Integrat-ed ecological approaches are a promising area of research and innovation. This includes the interactions between plants and/or animals and other organisms, as well as the interac-tions within the soil, and ecosystem services such as pol-lination, biological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services, most of which are not well known yet.

Specific types of farming systems that implement ecological approaches have developed in Europe and across the world, and they have their own research and innovation needs. These include the organic sector, which is the largest such farming system with a dedicated regulatory framework and dynamic market growth. Collaboration with other parts of the food and non-food supply chain is necessary to develop effective, new and creative solutions and business models especially for radical eco-innovations. Ecological approaches are knowledge-intensive and depend on combining formal and practical knowledge with modern technologies and prac-tices. Knowledge relating to agro-ecosystems is site-specific and evolving. Innovations are expected to capitalise on lo-cal conditions and provide place and tailor-made solutions. Long-term experiments and an appropriate research infra-structure need to be developed to meet the specific needs of ecological approaches in relation to -in particular- landscape levels and their evolution over longer periods of time.

Ecological approaches and organic farming under Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 (SC2)

41Projects or expected

grants

236 M€EU contribution

2014-2020

746Participations in selected projects

Key themesAgroecology – Organic Farming – Biodiversity – Ecosystem Services

– Landscape – Agriculture – Forestry – Agroforestry – pollination – biocontrol

– diversification – mixed farming – permanent grassland

JUNE 2019 UPDATE

AGRIRESEARCH

European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI)The EIP-AGRI has been designed as a key initiative for creating and sharing knowledge. Alongside the “multi-actor” projects under Horizon 2020, Operational Groups (OGs) enable to re-spond to local initiatives and site-specific conditions ensuring a bottom-up approach to innovation in agriculture.

Ecological approaches, organic and mixed farming under EIP-AGRI activities

Focus groups: • Mixed farming systems: livestock/cash crops• Agroforestry• Ecological Focus Areas• Organic Farming: optimising arable yields• Protein crops• Permanent Grassland• Sustainable High Nature Value (HNV) farming• Non-chemical weed management in arable cropping systems

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Workshop and seminar examples: :• Organic is operational • Tools for environmental farm performance • Protein crops• Cropping for the future: networking for crop rotation and crop diversification• Agri-Innovation summit 2019 on agroecology

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Organic farming and agro-environmental challenges are both part of the top five themes of the first Operational Groups funded under Rural Development programmes alongside with plant protection, precision farming, and new supply chains. Among the long list of running OGs, some examples:

Operational group examples

Development of a commercial line for biodiversity and local fruit and vegetable products bit.ly/2q6VhQc

Cover crop management for improved soil biology bit.ly/2uOFKdm

Nitrogen supply and control of Rhizoctonia solani in organic potato production bit.ly/2GYd2vr

Organic egg bit.ly/2GCnDsJ

Innovative arable crop system with leguminous crop bit.ly/2qaiDEr

Organic dock control Development and implementation with fiery clearwing moths bit.ly/2Ek9sGI

Agroforestry with horticultural crops - A multifunctional farm for peri-urban areas bit.ly/2IwA9Ky

FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

Horizon 2020 SC2 collaborative projects – Ecological approaches and organic farming

Organic Farming

Many projects and H2020 research topics cover both conventional and organic farming; the projects listed below are dedi-cated to organic farming.

CORE Organic Cofundwww.coreorganiccofund.orgTotal cost: 20.6M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: IcrofsDec. 2016 – Nov. 2021

CORE Organic Cofund is the continuation of a 10+ year ERA net supporting trans-European research and innovation within organic food and agriculture. The latest programme supports 12 projects with a total of 14 M€ covering four thematic areas:

• Ecological support in specialised and intensive plant production systems• Eco-efficient production and use of animal feed at local level • Appropriate and robust livestock systems: cattle, pigs , poultry• Organic food processing concepts and technologies for ensuring food quality, sustainability and

consumer confidence.

OK-Net Arable MA

www.ok-net-arable.euTotal cost: 2.2M€EC contribution: 2M€Coordinator: IFOAM - EUMar. 2015 – Feb. 2018

The overall aim of ‘OK-Net Arable’ was to increase productivity and quality in organic arable cropping by improving the knowledge exchange among farmers, farm advisers and scientists. To achieve this, the project synthesized existing knowledge. Based on this, advisory material that is easy to use was collected. An online platform (farmknowledge.org) was made to make the advisory material available for a wide audience of farmers and advisers and facilitate farmer-to-farmer learning across Europe.

OK-Net EcoFeed MA

www.ok-net-ecofeed.euTotal cost: 2M€EC contribution: 2M€Coordinator: IFOAM - EUJan. 2018 – Dec. 2020

OK-Net EcoFeed aims at helping organic pig and poultry farmers in achieving the goal of 100% use of organic and regional feed. The project will create a European network of innovation groups that will facilitate the exchange of knowledge among the different sectors. These groups will identify innovations from the ground up and ensure that solutions disseminated by the project “work in the real world”. All knowledge generated by the project will be made available on the organic farmknowledge platform.

LIVESEED MA

www.liveseed.euTotal cost: 9M€EC contribution: 7.5M€Coordinator: IFOAM - EUJun. 2017 – May 2021

The objective of LIVESEED is to improve transparency and competitiveness of the organic seed and breeding sector, encouraging greater use of organic seed. Cultivars adapted to organic systems are key for realising the full potential of organic agriculture in Europe. It will investigate socio-economic aspects relating to the use and production of organic seed and their interaction with EU regulations.

Organic-PLUS MA

organic-plus.netTotal cost: 4 M€EC contribution: 4 M€Coordinator: Coventry UniversityMay 2018 – April 2022

‘Organic-PLUS’ combines its focus on organic principles and bio-economy to improve resilience and ensure quality assurance within organic production, but also reduced environmental impact and fairer, more reliable rules and regulations that organic consumers (current and new) can trust to “buy-into” the growth of the sector.

BRESOV MA

bresov.euTotal cost: 7 M€EC contribution: 6 M€Coordinator: Universita degli studi di CataniaMay 2018 – April 2022

BRESOV deals with the urgent need to provide climate-resilient cultivars for organic vegetable production systems. It will explore the genetic diversity of three of the economically most significant vegetable crops (broccoli, snap bean and tomato) and will improve the competitiveness of these three crops in an organic and sustainable environment. The consortium’s overall aim is to increase the plants’ tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, to adapt the varieties to the specific requirements of organic and low-input production processes, and to increase quality of organic seed.

AGRIRESEARCH

ECOBREED MA

ecobreed.euTotal cost: 6.2€EC contribution: 5.7 M€ Coordinator: Kmetijski Institut Slovenije May 2018 – April 2023

ECOBREED will improve the availability of seed and varieties suitable for organic and low input production. Activities will focus on four crop species, i.e. common wheat, potato, soybean and common buckwheat. The project will develop (a) methods, strategies and infrastructures for organic breeding, (b) varieties with improved stress resistance, resource use efficiency and quality and (c) improved methods for the production of high quality organic seed.

RELACS MA

relacs-project.euTotal cost: 4 M€EC contribution: 4 M€Coordinator: Forschungsinstitut für Biologischen Landbau Stiftung SchweizMay 2018 – April 2022

The overall objective of RELACS is to foster development and facilitate adoption of cost-efficient and environmentally safe tools and technologies, to phase out the dependency on and use of contentious inputs in organic farming systems. RELACS will reduce the use of copper and mineral oil, manure from conventional farms, provide alternatives to excessive use of anthelmintics in small ruminants, reduce antibiotic use in dairy cattle and moderate reliance on synthetic vitamins in cattleand poultry production.

MA = Multi-actor

FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

Nitrogen fixing crops

LEGVALUE MA

www.legvalue.euTotal cost: 6M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: Terres InoviaJun. 2017 – May 2021

LEGVALUE objectives are to define platforms for change that can help deliver greater EU self-sufficiency in crop protein production, to identify opportunities for innovation, adding value to markets and all participants in the value chains and to recognise opportunities to influence change, be they at commercial, research or policy level. The ultimate benefits are the fostering of more profitable legume production in the EU to satisfy a larger more valuable and diverse market to the financial benefit along value chains and to deliver social and environmental benefits to all.

TRUE MA

www.true-project.eu Total cost: 5M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: James Hutton InstituteApr. 2017 – Mar. 2021

TRUE aims to identify the best “transition paths” to increase sustainable legume cultivation and consumption across Europe. Analysis and modelling approaches combined with data generated from Case Studies and transdisciplinary knowledge-exchange will lead to concrete innovations and to a Decision Support Tool for primary producers, agronomists, processors, associated businesses and decision makers to help determine a range of options for successful transitions with a variety of legume species and processing approaches to match the pedo-climatic zones and farm types.

EUCLEGwww.eucleg.euTotal cost: 7.8M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: INRASept. 2017 – Aug. 2021

EUCLEG aims to improve diversification, crop productivity, yield stability and protein quality of both forage (alfalfa and red clover) and grain (pea, faba bean and soybean) legumes. Using diverse and extensive genetic resources and taking advantage of advanced molecular tools, EUCLEG aims to identify and develop the best genetic resources, phenotyping methods and molecular tools to breed legume varieties with improved performance under biotic and abiotic stresses in the representative European and Chinese agro-ecological areas.

AGRIRESEARCH

Crop diversification and climate smart farming

DIVERSify MA

www.plant-teams.eu/Total cost: 5M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: James Hutton InstituteApr. 2017 – Mar. 2021

DIVERSify is a multidisciplinary and multi-actor partnership which will co-construct a new applied approach to optimise the performance of plant species mixtures (or ‘plant teams’) and develop tools to support implementation. It will unravel the mechanisms underpinning the benefits associated with cropping of plant teams and identify the plant traits and agronomic practices promoting these benefits, developing tools and guidelines for farming practitioners in diverse environmental conditions.

ReMIX MA

www.remix-intercrops.euTotal cost: 6M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: INRAMay 2017 – Apr. 2021

ReMIX will allow designing cropping systems based on agro-ecology for the benefit of farmers and the whole EU agricultural community. It will exploit the benefits of species mixtures to design more diversified and resilient agro-ecological cropping systems. Based on a multi-actor approach, ReMIX will produce new knowledge that is both scientifically credible and socially valuable in conventional and organic agriculture. The project will tackle practical questions and co-design ready-to-use practical solutions.

DiverIMPACTS MA

www.diverimpacts.net Total cost: 11.2M€EC contribution: 10M€Coordinator: INRAJun. 2017 – May 2022

DiverIMPACTS seeks to achieve the full potential of diversification of cropping systems for improved productivity, delivery of ecosystem services and resource-efficient and sustainable value chains. It will assess the performance of crop diversification through rotation, intercropping and multiple cropping. It will also provide rural actors with key enablers and innovations that will help removing existing barriers and ensure the uptake of crop diversification benefits at farm, value chain and territorial levels.

DIVERFARMING MA

www.diverfarming.eu Total cost: 10.5M€EC contribution: 10M€Coordinator: U. Politecnica de CartagenaMay 2017 – Apr. 2022

With the long-term objective to increase diversification and biodiversity in Europe and to foster sustainable development of the bioeconomy, Diverfarming will develop and deploy innovative farming and agribusiness strategies. Diverfarming will increase the long-term resilience, sustainability and economic revenues of agriculture across the EU by assessing the real benefits and minimising the limitations, barriers and drawbacks of diversified cropping systems under low-input agronomic practices, and by adapting and optimising the organisation of downstream value chains.

SUPER-G MA

super-g.eu/ Total cost: 10 M€EC contribution: 10 M€ Coordinator: University of Newcastle Upon TyneJune 2018 – May 2023

SUPER-G aims to co-develop sustainable permanent grasslands systems and policies with farmers and policy makers that will be effective in optimising productivity, whilst supporting biodiversity and delivering a number of other ecosystem services. The benchmarking and testing involves a network of farms and experimental platforms in 14 countries covering the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Continental, Alpine, Pannonian and Boreal regions.

FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

PoshBee MA

poshbee.euTotal cost: 10 M€EU contribution: 9 M€Coordinator: Royal Holloway & Bedford New College June 2018 – May 2023

PoshBee is addressing the issue of stressors – agrochemicals, pathogens, and nutrition – to ensure the sustainable health of bees and their pollination services in Europe. Integrating the knowledge and experience of local beekeeping and farming organisations and academic researchers (including the EU RefLab for bee health), it will provide a comprehensive pan-European assessment of the exposure hazard of chemicals, pathogens and nutritional stress for solitary, bumble, and honey bees across two major cropping systems.

EcoStack MA

ecostack-h2020.euTotal cost: 10 M€EC contribution: 10 M€ Coordinator: Università degli Studi di NapoliSept. 2018 – Sept. 2023

EcoStack focuses on the management of beneficial organisms in the field to maximise ecosystem services for the production of crops. The interactions between trophic levels (microbe-plant-herbivore-natural enemy / pollinator), and functional biodiversity at different levels (within and between species, fields, landscapes), will be stacked for maximising farmer benefits and system resilience.

EXCALIBUR MA

bit.ly/2JUrZ3rTotal cost: 7 M€EC contribution: 7 M€Coordinator: CREAJune 2019 – May 2024

Excalibur plans to deepen the knowledge on soil biodiversity dynamics and its synergistic effects with prebiotic and probiotic approaches in horticulture. New multifunctional soil microbial inoculants and bio-effectors will be tested on three model crops (e.g. tomato, apple, strawberry) to enhance the positive roles of native biodiversity across Europe. Moreover, the project will develop a comprehensive strategy of soil management including models and technical tools improving the effectiveness of biocontrol and biofertilization practices in agriculture.

SoildiverAgro MA

bit.ly/311MAIt Total cost: 7 M€EC contribution: 7 M€Coordinator: University of VigoJune 2019 – May 2024

SoildiverAgro aims to enhance the adoption of new management practices and cropping systems that enhance soil genetic and functional biodiversity to reduce the use of external inputs while increasing crop production and quality, the delivery of ecosystem services and the EU agricultural stability and resilience. The project will analyse farming systems and test innovative methods and practices in various pedoclimatic regions.

STARGATE MA

WebTotal cost: 7 M€EC contribution: 7 M€ Coordinator: Center for Research and Technology HellasOct. 2019 - Sept. 2023

STARGATE will focus on Climate Smart Agriculture and will study the benefits of applying agri-environment-climate technical solutions to achieve sustainable agricultural development at landscape level. It means to support farm management modernisation and at the same time get to know the underlying ecological factors that shape the farming landscape.

AGRIRESEARCH

Socio-economics

LIFTlift-h2020.eu/Total cost: 5 M€EC contribution: 5 M€ Coordinator: INRAMay 2018 – April 2022

LIFT explores the potential benefits of the adoption of ecological farming in the EU and seeks to increase the understanding of how socio-economic and policy factors impact the adoption, performance and sustainability of ecological farming at various scales, from the level of the single farm to that of a territory. LIFT will also develop new private arrangements and policy instruments that could improve the adoption and subsequent performance and sustainability of the rural nexus.

UNISECOuniseco-project.eu/Total cost: 5 M€EC contribution: 5 M€ Coordinator: Johann Heinrich Thuenen InstitutMay 2018 – April 2021

UNISECO seeks to enhance the understanding of socio-economic and policy drivers and barriers for further development and implementation of agro-ecological practices in EU farming systems. Using multi-actor platforms UNISECO will co-construct improved and practice-validated strategies and incentives for the implementation of agro-ecological practices and provide a methodological toolkit to assess the environmental, economic and social impacts of innovative strategies and incentives at farm and territorial levels.

Integrated pest management including weed managementSC2 projects dealing with biological control and integrated pest management, are clustered in a specific factsheet on plant health, including IWMPRAISE on integrated weed management:

IWMPRAISE MA iwmpraise.eu Total cost: 7 M€ EC contribution: 6,6 M€ Coordinator: Aarhus University Jun. 2017 to May 2022

IWMPRAISE aims to support the implementation of Integrated Weed Management (IWM). It will demonstrate that adoption of IWM supports more sustainable cropping systems both agronomically and environmentally, which are resilient to external impacts without jeopardising profitability or the steady supply of food, feed and biomaterials. IWMPRAISE aims to develop, test and assess management strategies delivered across whole cropping systems for four contrasting scenarios representing typical crops in Europe.

FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

Compiling knowledge ready for practice – thematic networks

AFINET MA

www.eurafagroforestry.eu/afinetTotal cost: 2 M€EC contribution: 2 M€Coordinator: U. de Santiago de CompostelaJan. 2017 – Dec. 2019

AFINET aims at improving knowledge exchange between scientists and practitioners on agroforestry practices through the creation a knowledge cloud reservoir and a network of farmers to foster agroforestry implementation at EU level, with a special focus on silvoarable (woody perennials and arable crops combinations) and silvopastoral systems (woody perennials and livestock faming) design, management, production, profitability and policy.

CERERE MA

www.cerere2020.eu/ Total cost: 2 M€EC contribution: 2 M€Coordinator: U. of ReadingNov. 2016 – Oct. 2019

CERERE aims at sustaining and promoting innovative approaches emerging in Europe from a multitude of practices adopted to introduce and manage agrobiodiversity in cereal production. These innovations are rooted in local traditions, knowledge and food culture.

Inno4Grass MA

www.inno4grass.eu Total cost: 2 M€EC contribution: 2 M€Coordinator: GrünlandzentrumJan. 2017 – Dec. 2019

The overall objective of Inno4Grass is to bridge the gap between practice and science communities to ensure the implementation of innovative systems on productive grasslands. The long term goal is to increase profitability of European grassland farms and to preserve environmental values.

HNV-Link MA

www.hnvlink.eu/ Total cost: 2.23M€EC contribution: 2.23M€Coordinator: CIHEAMApr. 2016 – Mar. 2019

Conceived as a “support service” for knowledge and innovation exchanges, the HNV-Link network will give a decisive new impetus to this sector, and will provide tools to organisations, actors and networks supporting High Nature Value (HNV) farmlands.

Legumes Translated MA

legumestranslated.eu/ Total cost: 2 M€EC contribution: 2 M€Coordinator: Johann Heinrich Thuenen-InstitutNov. 2018 – Oct. 2021

The Legumes Translated thematic network supports innovation in grain legume-supported cropping systems and value-chains by linking sources and users of quality-assured knowledge using rigorous knowledge synthesis and compilation. In addition to direct interaction between partners, an extensive range of communications using an internet-based knowledge platform (The Legume Hub) will secure long lasting document availability.

Strengthening the European Research Area (ERA)

SusCropwww.suscrop.euTotal cost: 15M€EC contribution: 5M€Coordinator: FZ JuelichJan. 2018 – Dec. 2022

ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop ProductionThe aim of the SusCrop is to strengthen the ERA in the field of crop research, in particular in relation to crop production. The SusCrop joint call for proposals will include systemic research on agricultural crops as part of an ecosystem (“plant as a meta-organism”) additionally to breeding, IPM and resource-use efficiency activities.

AGRIRESEARCH

Interesting activities under other Horizon 2020 sectionsFunded through Horizon 2020 support to Infrastructures, ENVRIplus (www.envriplus.eu) brings together Environmen-tal and Earth System Research Infrastructures, projects and networks to create a more coherent, interdisciplinary and interoperable cluster of Environmental Research Infrastruc-tures across Europe. AnaEE, the research infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems has been

supported through FP7-Infrastructure (bit.ly/2v6YNQg) and is part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infra-structures (ESFRI) roadmap (bit.ly/2GUvcem p41). ANAEE will provide a distributed and coordinated set of experimental, analytical and modelling facilities in ecosystem science, ag-riculture and forestry, including highly equipped in natural experimental platforms.

In the pipeline – 8 projects to start under H2020 SC2 calls 2019 (60 M€)

Biodiversity in action: across farmland and the value chain - Capitalising on native biodiversity in farmland landscape MA

(2 projects, 16 M€)

Climate-smart and resilient farming - Efficiency and resilience of mixed farming and agroforestry systems MA

(2 projects, 14 M€)

Sustainable Intensification in Africa- African Farming Systems, sustainable intensification pathways MA

(4 projects, 30 M€)

Funding opportunities - Open H2020 SC2 calls for 2020 (20 M€)SFS-01-2018-2019-2020- Biodiversity in action: across farmland and the value chainC. (2020) From agrobiodiversity to dynamic value chains MA

(3 projects, 18 M€)

FNR-01-2020 - Strengthening the European agroecological research and innovation ecosystem

(1 projects, 2 M€)

FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

How does research on ecological approaches and organic farming support EU Policies?

Ensuring the environmental sustainability of agriculture is at the core of EU policies and measures, both inside the EU and in Commission’s external research and innovation and development cooperation policy. Ecological practices can make a decisive contribution to it, as explicitly recognised in the New European Consensus for Development. From the policy side, both the Organic Farming Regulation and the Common Agricultural Policy can be considered as tools with potential to foster ecological approaches in agriculture. Some of the measures provided for in the Rural Development regulation aim to make European agriculture more environmentally sustainable in particular by promoting agri-environmental measures and investments to tackle and adapt to climate change and to support areas with natural constraints. Within the first pillar of the CAP, three major greening practices (permanent grassland conservation, ecological focus areas and crop diversification) are being promoted to reduce the negative environmental impact of agricultural activities in the EU.

In its proposals tabled in June 2018 for the future Common agricultural policy (CAP), the European Commission sets higher ambitions on environmental and climate change. The policy will step up the incentives to reduce the pressure of agriculture on the environment while increasing the supply of public goods to the EU society. Mandatory requirements have been proposed to preserve carbon-rich soils, improve nutrient management and rotate crops. Farmers will have the possibility to contribute further and be rewarded for going beyond mandatory requirements through eco-schemes.

The Future CAP will play an important role in the contribution of the EU to the COP21 Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This context will be particularly favourable for supporting agroecological practices, which are largely depending on local conditions. The future CAP provides also more emphasis on agricultural knowledge and innovation systems, including advisory systems and knowledge transfer and innovation, which are key for the development of agroecology.

Research and innovation activities were developed in close alignment with the current Common agricultural policy and the proposals tabled in 2018 as well as the EU action plan on Organic Farming.

More info:

• The Future of Food and Farming: bit.ly/2j2n9lF• Action Plan for the future of Organic Production in the European Union: bit.ly/2AxJAZT• The new European consensus on development “our world, our dignity, our future”: bit.ly/2w2YEbQ

AGRIRESEARCH FACTSHEET ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND ORGANIC FARMING

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