Agricultural production largely depends on external inputs both for plant nutrition and crop In order to ensure food security while protecting the environment and mitigate climate effect agricultural production methods, including the use of chemical-synthetic pesticides, needs to be revised. Lined out in the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy, the reduction of pesticide use by 50 % until 2030 should be one element to reach the expected goals. In the recent years several scientific studies has been performed to develop strategies and techniques to enable a reduction of chemical-synthetic pesticides use. Next to methods like organic farming, which omits the use of mineral fertilisers and chemical-synthetic pesticides, but result in lower yields, Integrated Pest management (IPM) has gained a lot of attention and was subject of national and international research activities. Advanced IPM is characterised by implementing a high degree of preventive measures to avoid establishment of pests and only resorting to chemical pesticides when there is no other option to avoid severe yield loss. However, the implementation of IPM at a multidisciplinary level is still lacking due to economic reasons and a low acceptance by farmers. Therefore, a key element of FORTUNA is to identify and analyse the available methods, tools and mechanisms from a biological/ecological, technological, socio-/economic perspective that unlocks a substantial reduction in use and risk of chemical pesticides and ultimately novel pesticide-free farming practices. Results and strategies will be discussed with stakeholders along the food- and supply-chain, which could contribute to a transition to a reduce reliance on chemical pesticides while supporting successful yields and enable food security. One major point in this process is to identify strategies that have a lower risk of productivity and profitability and profitability losses than other strategies and target the long-term perspectives.

The overall objective of EUNetHorse is to establish an active multi-stakeholder network in France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Poland, Finland, in order to increase the resilience and performance of their equine farms to face environmental, social, health, economic or political crises by widely disseminating practices, tools and solutions that improve (1) their resilience and socio-economic performance, (2) animal welfare and health on farms, and (3) the environmental sustainability of the sector. To achieve this, EUNetHorse will i) increase the flow of practical information between farmers in these 8 countries in a geographically balanced way and taking into account the differences between territories by structuring National-Horse AKISs in each country ii) collect and assess grassroots solutions and practices; disseminate best practices and solutions on the three thematic areas mentioned aboved replying to specific needs iii) achieve a greater user acceptance of the collected solutions and best practices through cross-fertilisation between all actors of the sector (horse breeders, advisors, trainers, technical experts, scientists, policy makers, sector representatives, etc. ) and all levels (local, regional, national and European) during exchange activities allowing peer-to-peer learning such as workshops, demonstration days, training and cross visits. v) maintain the practical knowledge in the long term - beyond the project period - by sharing the full set of project results on the EUFarmbook platform accessible to all, by training advisors and trainers during the project on these topics, by setting up a sustainable network of trainers and advisors who can continue to train equine farmers and disseminate these solutions using the training kit made available through their activities with equine farmers.

STELLA will develop a real time pest surveillance system. The system will consist of 3 subsystems: 1) an early warning system using novel forecasting models and IoT sensors, 2) a pest detection system using drones, satellites, and a smartphone application, and 3) a pest response system providing data-driven recommendations for containment and counteractive measures. The system will be tested in 6 Use Case Pilots across 5 countries, covering 8 various diseases of importance to the EU. Capacity building activities will be developed with a focus on providing training, education, and resources to farmers, agronomists, and other stakeholders involved in crop protection. These activities will aim to equip stakeholders with the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively use the STELLA system and implement environmentally friendly crop protection alternatives. Policy recommendations generated by the project will aim to support the European Commission's goals of reducing pesticide use and managing priority plant pest outbreaks. The recommendations will be based on the data and insights gathered through the early warning, detection, and response system. A networking strategy will be developed to leverage existing knowledge and enable links with relevant organisations, networks, projects, and initiatives. Collaborating with stakeholders as well as other projects will provide opportunities to exchange ideas and learn from others' experiences.

The PLAID project (Peer-to-peer Learning: Accessing Innovation through Demonstration) will identify, compile and make publically accessible the topics, locations, best practices and innovative approaches to demonstration on commercial farms in the EU 28, Switzerland and Norway. PLAID will enable access to demonstration activities by creating a searchable georeferenced inventory and map covering all 30 countries; developing ‘virtual’ (on-line) demonstration approaches with commercial farmers; assessing governance, commissioning, financing, topic selection, access (particularly gender), mediation techniques and impact in 24 longitudinal case studies; and comparing the impact of different governance models and financing mechanisms on learning processes and accessibility. PLAID will produce recommendations for governance and best practice in both real and virtual demonstration settings, using these to develop indicators and decision support tools for farmers, advisors, commercial companies, charities, educators, policy makers and researchers. PLAID is a multi-actor consortium, using a multi-stakeholder approach, where farmers, industry stakeholders and academics work together as to design, test and validate outputs. PLAID has been designed to achieve high impact, through generation of a substantial set of knowledge exchange activities and project outputs, which will be hosted long-term on PLAID stakeholder web-sites, You Tube and the EIP Agri Service Point. PLAID will initiate a community of practice, which together with the above activities and outputs will provide a solid foundation for RUR-12-2017: “Networking European farms to boost thematic knowledge exchanges and close the innovation gap” and provide substantive input to the EIP Agri database.

Increasing global crop productivity will be central in meeting some of the greatest challenges facing mankind: How will we sustainably feed 9.7 billion people by 2050, while also achieving the transition from a fossil economy towards a bio-economy in order to mitigate, or possibly reverse, the effects of global climate change? How can we assure and maintain the nutritional quality of our future crops? Additionally, how can we provide new crop cultivars adapted to the constraints imposed across vast areas by climate change? A doubling of global crop productivity is required to produce enough plant biomass to achieve food and nutrition security, as well as to meet the demands of a future bioeconomy. To ensure both Food and Nutrition Security this increase in crop production must be achieved without any loss of nutritional quality. In addition, future agriculture will require crops that combine sustainability - they must efficiently using scarce resources like minerals and water and preserving Earth’s biodiversity - with 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 insurmountable complexity. CropBooster-P will address this by identifying priorities and opportunities to adapting and boosting productivity to the environmental and societal changes. While engaging with the public from the beginning, and by mobilizing European plant sciences, our objective is to produce a White Paper – a Roadmap – that will describe the pathway to sustainably doubling Europe’s crop yields by 2050 and preparing these crops for the needs and the future climate of Europe