ExpectedOutcome:
The conservation and enhancement of Earth’s natural terrestrial carbon sinks such as soils and plants, forests, farmed lands and wetlands is crucial. The European Green Deal gives research and innovation (R&I) a significant role to play in supporting the design and implementation of policies that will ensure the achievement of the EU’s climate objectives. Project implementation is expected to contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change and help achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:
- Expand the knowledge base of climate related practices, resulting in increased application of climate neutral farm approaches, assessing and evaluating different methods with all relevant actors involved in Member States and Associated Countries;
- Speed up involvement and adoption by farmers of innovative / smart farming practices that mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and that foster the adaptation of the sector to climate change. In the long term, this will support a more substantial contribution of the farming sector to mitigation of GHG emissions and to carbon storage;
- Increased involvement of Member States’ and Associated Countries agricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS) in climate-related farming issues, including through linking to the European innovation partnership "Agricultural productivity and sustainability" (EIP-AGRI) national / regional / local projects and the advisors, with a view to wider dissemination and interaction within the Member States.
Scope:
A wide adoption of practices contributing to mitigation of climate change and carbon storage by farmers is a priority to ensure that the EU reaches GHG mitigation objectives by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050. Farming is also vulnerable to impacts of climate change; hence adaptation is of utmost importance. Mainstreaming the use of climate-smart practices has been recognised as a priority at the global level, including at the G-20. In particular, the engagement of farmers in this effort needs to be increased. Therefore, a strong involvement of Member States’ AKIS is needed, as well as the development of targeted advice to farmers on climate issues.
The aim is to establish a three level network in a phased manner over Cluster 6 work programmes 2021/2022 and 2023/2024. The first level is a network which will engage front-runner farmers introducing on-farm trials and demonstration of innovations, using existing knowledge. The second level is a network to connect all advisors on the subject in the Member States, building on achievements of Horizon 2020 projects and EIP-AGRI operational groups and the development of Member States’ AKIS, to ensure the provision of targeted advice. The third level of the network will engage and strengthen the capacity of experimental research stations on climate issues.
The present topic deals with the advisory level. Learning from experiences on “real” farms led by sustainability-oriented farmers eager to pilot existing or new practice-ready techniques, this level will aim at enhancing up advisors’ competences by sharing widely climate neutral ready-for-practice solutions across the EU. This requires interaction between collaborative innovation ecosystems and will involve the main AKIS actors and AKIS coordination bodies in each Member State.
Proposals should:
- Use advisors to spread solutions from practice oriented on-farm testing and demonstration in project work programme HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-04 “Demonstration network on climate-smart farming – linking pilot farms” and help develop new solutions through taking part in practice-oriented innovation projects such as EIP Operational Groups;
- Collect and provide tool-kits for GHG balances at farm level, performance monitoring, decision tools, climate services, etc. for possible use by a wide range of farms;
- Support the implementation of the EU carbon farming manual as foreseen in the farm to fork strategy and the implementation of the third party certification of carbon removals, as foreseen in the circular economy action plan;
- Foster knowledge exchange within Member States and regions and establish links with the EIP-AGRI and AKIS networks and AKIS coordination bodies of Member States and Associated Countries;
- Link advisors in an EU climate-smart farming network including advisors in all Member States to stimulate effective cross-fertilisation among Member State advisors. Include a sufficient number of various types of advisor per country, taking into account the size of the Member State and ensuring a broad EU coverage;
- Proposals should include a task to collaborate with other projects involved in the network HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-04 “Demonstration network on climate-smart farming – linking pilot farms” and a topic to be published in Cluster 6 work programme 2023/2024);
- The project should operate for at least seven years and build on climate-related projects from various funding sources. The project must implement the multi-actor approach and may involve social innovation.
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
