EC: Optimisation of Manure Use to Mitigate GHG Emissions & Minimize Contaminants Dispersion in Environment

Deadline: 28-Mar-23

The European Commission (EC) is inviting applications for the Optimisation of manure use along the management chain to mitigate GHG emissions and minimize nutrients/contaminants dispersion in the environment.

Scope

• Agriculture is a sector that significantly contributes to GHG emissions in EU and to air pollution, mainly through ammonia emissions. Reducing the environmental and climate footprint of the livestock farming system is therefore of paramount importance. Several practices and technical measures to limit emissions from manure management are already available. Some other techniques are still considered experimental. Despite major advancements, there is still no widespread application of these practices and further research is needed to assess their socio-economic and environmental impacts. Furthermore, there is the need to do a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of mitigation strategies along the entire manure management chain and to take into account different GHGs and the pollution swapping effect, i.e. decreasing the emission of one GHG that can cause the increase of another one or the increase of the emission of the same GHG at one of the other stages of manure management.
• Another important aspect of manure management is to reduce environmental pollution caused among others by ammonia emissions, excess of nitrogen and phosphorus, by nitrate leakages, and by different components of manure, including potential contaminants, on air and water quality, on soil health, on animal health, welfare and productivity and on human health.
• Therefore, there is the need to develop further strategies and technologies for livestock farming systems to reduce GHG, ammonia and nitrate emissions from manure through an integrated approach for the management of manure, taking into account all steps: feeding, housing, handling, collection, treatment, storage and application. The following elements should be incorporated:
  • Identify and establish inventory of up-to-date manure management practices, technologies and data originating from R&I activities (from feeding to low-emission manure storage and processing, composting, exchange of manure/slurries between livestock and crop farms, manure additives to reduce emissions, etc.) in conventional/intensive, semi-intensive, household and organic livestock farming systems;
  • Improve or develop lifecycle assessment methods, models and equipment for the measurement and monitoring of GHG (CH4, N2O), atmospheric and air pollutants (NH3, NOx) at each stage of manure management practices, from feeding to field application;
  • Improve knowledge on the fate and persistence in the environment (e.g., water, soil, air) of manure chemicals and biological contaminants, including pathogens antibiotic resistance genes, heavy metals and associated health/environmental risks;
  • Demonstrate and test the most efficient strategies and technologies to mitigate GHG emissions and air pollutants from manure at regional/local scale. Activities should take into account relevant practices, strategies and data on GHG, atmospheric and air pollutants mitigation from several livestock farming systems, covering conventional/intensive, semi-intensive, grazing/low input or organic, in different climate/biogeographical regions;
  • Cost-benefit assessment of practices/technologies used to mitigate GHG emissions, air pollutants and nitrate emissions from manure, including assessment of pollution swapping effects, trade-offs and co-benefits on animal (e.g., health and welfare, production efficiencies) and environment (e.g., ammonia emissions, nitrate leakage, nitrogen balance and P losses to water);
  • Formulate technical guidelines and policy recommendation to enhance the implementation and uptake of methods, technologies or practices to limit emissions and contaminants from manure management.
• The proposal should take into account other EU-funded projects, including those funded under the ERA-NETs SusAn and ERA-GAS. Proposals should be based on a gap analysis taking into account the existing legislation and related knowledge.
• Proposals must implement the ‘multi-actor approach’ and ensure adequate involvement of the farming sector, agricultural advisory services, manufacturers, ecology and nature conservation experts, and other relevant actors.
• In this topic, the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
• Due to the scope of this topic, international cooperation is strongly encouraged, in particular with China. This topic is within the scope of the Administrative Arrangement between the European Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China on a Co-funding Mechanism for the period 2021-2024 to support collaborative research projects under the Food, Agriculture and Biotechnologies (FAB) and the Climate Change and Biodiversity (CCB) flagship initiatives.
• Actions will contribute to implementing the EU-China Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology (FAB) flagship initiative, which aims to ensure sustainability of agri-food systems, catering for the needs of a growing population, the reduction of food and agricultural losses and waste, and the provision of safe and healthy foodstuffs. Interaction with other actions developed under the EU-China Climate Change and Biodiversity (CCB) Research Flagship and the Flagship on Food, Agriculture and Biotechnologies (FAB) is encouraged if relevant.

Focus Areas

• In line with the objectives of the European Green Deal and related initiatives targeting environmental challenges, particularly the EU zero pollution action plan, the 2030 climate target plan, and other relevant EU legislation, this destination seeks to halt and prevent pollution by focusing on:
  • removing pollution from fresh and marine waters, soils, air, including from nitrogen and phosphorus emissions;
  • substituting harmful chemicals;
  • improving the environmental sustainability and circularity of bio-based systems;
  • reducing environmental impacts of and pollution in food systems.

Funding Information

• The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
  • public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
  • cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcomes

• In line with the farm to fork strategy, the methane strategy, the EU zero pollution action plan and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the successful proposal will support research and innovation (R&I) to help farm business reduce local and global GHG and ammonia emissions from livestock farming systems. It will contribute to support policy makers with enhanced knowledge to limit emissions and investigate further measures, inter alia under the common agricultural policy, to achieve reduction targets of 2030 and beyond.
• The proposed project is expected to contribute to the reduction of the environmental and climate footprint of the livestock farming systems, through a better understanding of i) the potential of scaling up efficient and innovative manure management practices and technologies, and ii) the impact of emission abatement and contaminant reduction measures on health and environment (air, water and soil) safety.
• Activities under this topic will contribute to all of the following outcomes:
  • Improved cost-effective solutions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and atmospheric, air, water and environment pollutants produced by the livestock manure management chain, both in conventional and organic livestock farming
  • Boosted uptake of improved and innovative practices and technologies to optimise manure management (while considering potential trade-offs)
  • Improved capacity to better manage manure nutrients, minimizing their losses, increasing circularity and matching demand and supply
  • Policy recommendation on improving manure management to mitigate GHG and ammonia emissions and minimize dispersion of undesirable manure components such as biological and chemical contaminants in the environment.

Expected impact

• Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway that helps to halt and eliminate pollution to guarantee clean and healthy soils, air, fresh and marine water for all and ensure that natural resources are used and managed in a sustainable and circular manner. To reach this objective, it will be vital to advance the knowledge of pollution sources and pathways to enable preventive measures to be rolled out, improve sustainability and circularity, apply planetary boundaries in practice and introduce effective remediation methods. To this end, the following is required:
  • move towards achieving clean, unpolluted surface water and groundwater bodies in the EU and Associated Countries by increasing understanding of diffuse and point sources of water pollution in a global and climate change context, enabling novel solutions to avoid degradation and restore water bodies, aquatic ecosystems and soil functionality, and further improve the quality and management of water for safe human and ecological use, while strengthening the EU’s and Associated Countries’ positions and roles in the global water scene;
  • balance N/P flows within safe ecological boundaries at regional and local level, helping restore ecosystems;
  • move towards achieving clean, unpolluted oceans and seas, including in the Arctic, by means of successful scientific, technological, behavioural, socio-economic, governance and green-blue transitions;
  • strengthen circular bio-based systems to operate within planetary boundaries, replacing fossil-based systems and their carbon footprint, mitigating climate change, and restoring biodiversity and protecting air, water and soil quality along the supply chain of biological feedstocks and industrial value chains within the EU and Associated Countries and across borders;
  • substitute harmful chemicals for safer and more sustainable alternatives, notably by boosting innovative biotechnology and other sustainable technologies to create zero-pollution bio-based solutions;
• reduce the environmental impact of food systems, e.g. by increasing knowledge of the environmental and climate impacts stemming from the food systems and reducing pollution from plastic food packaging.

Eligible Activities

• Eligible activities are the ones described in the call conditions. Applications will only be considered eligible if their content corresponds, wholly or in part, to the topic description for which it is submitted.
• Projects must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not:
  • aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes;
  • intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed);
  • intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research, or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.
• Projects must, moreover, comply with EU policy interests and priorities (environment, social, security, industrial policy, etc.).
• The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:
  • Research and innovation actions (RIA) — Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.
  • Innovation actions (IA) — Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
  • Coordination and support actions (CSA) — Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme.
  • Programme co-fund actions (CoFund) — A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies. Such a programme of activities may support: networking and coordination; research; innovation; pilot actions; innovation and market deployment; training and mobility; awareness raising and communication; and dissemination and exploitation.
  • Innovation and market deployment actions (IMDA) — Activities that embed an innovation action and other activities necessary to deploy an innovation on the market. This includes the scaling-up of companies and Horizon Europe blended finance.
  • Training and mobility actions (TMA) — Activities that aim to improve the skills, knowledge and career prospects of researchers, based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines.
  • Pre-commercial procurement actions (PCP) — Activities that aim to help a transnational buyers’ group to strengthen the public procurement of research, development, validation and, possibly, the first deployment of new solutions that can significantly improve quality and efficiency in areas of public interest, while opening market opportunities for industry and researchers active in Europe. Eligible activities include the preparation, management and follow-up, under the coordination of a lead procurer, of one joint PCP and additional activities to embed the PCP into a wider set of demand-side activities.
  • Public procurement of innovative solutions actions (PPI) — Activities that aim to strengthen the ability of a transnational buyers’ group to deploy innovative solutions early by overcoming the fragmentation of demand for such solutions and sharing the risks and costs of acting as early adopters, while opening market opportunities for industry. Eligible activities include preparing and implementing, under the coordination of a lead procurer, one joint or several coordinated PPI by the buyers’ group and additional activities to embed the PPI into a wider set of demand-side activities.

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
• Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service before signing the grant agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for submitting an application.
• Specific Cases
  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
  • Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
  • Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
• To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
• To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
  • the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
  • the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States: Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
  • countries associated to Horizon Europe; Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine.

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