Strategies and technologies to achieve a European fossil-energy-free agriculture

Duration: 2020 - 2023 ● Client: European Commission (H2020) ● WIP Role: Research, Knowledge transfer, Data collection/preparation/evaluation, Market uptake, Communication and dissemination ●

The aim of the project is to create a framework under which critical stakeholders will cooperate to evaluate and promote currently available fossil-energy-free strategies and technologies (FEFTS) in EU agriculture to diminish in the short term and eliminate in the long run fossil fuels use in any farming process from cradle to farm gate, while maintaining yield and quality of the end-product. Such a framework will contribute in closing the gap between the available FEFTS either commercial or from applicable research results with the everyday EU agricultural practices by promoting effective exchange of novel ideas and information between research, industry, extension and the farming community so that existing research and commercial solutions can be widely communicated, while capturing grassroots level needs and innovative ideas from the farming and related industry communities. Financing opportunities for de-fossilizing EU agriculture will be investigated and highlighted.

The specific objectives are to:

• consider and evaluate the current status in EU agriculture regarding energy use and assess existing needs and interests for the future farm energy profile
• identify and register currently available and directly applicable FEFTS, spanning from applied research results to market solutions and investigate available financing tools for de-fossilizing activities
• create an online platform containing all available FEFTS to be assessed and provide a Decision Support Toolkit to provide proposed interventions based on user inputs as well as links for those interventions financing
• collaborate with all relative stakeholders in thematic groups using interactive physical and online methodologies to produce community-based ideas for FEFTS integration in agricultural systems in a regional and EU-basis
• create policy recommendations and communicate them to increase visibility and promote the proposed strategies and technologies in real agricultural activities in the near future.