Deadline: 06-Oct-21
European Commission has announced the proposals for Digitalisation as an Enabler of Agro-Ecological Farming Systems.
Scope
- Agroecology is a holistic approach that relies on and maximises the use of ecological processes to support agricultural production. By working more with nature and ecosystem services, it has the potential to increase farms’ circularity, diversification and autonomy, and drive a full transformation of farming systems and agricultural value chains, from input substitution and beyond.
- Agroecological farming systems therefore have great potential to enhance the sustainability performance of agriculture and agricultural value chains that contribute to the objectives of the EU farm to fork strategy. Compared to industrialised and most conventional agricultural production, agroecology brings a higher level of complexity to farming systems.
Funding Information
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
- A successful proposal should support the farm to fork’s strategy objective of a transition to a fair, healthy and resilient European agriculture sector, in particular the goal of promoting agroecology, by improving understanding of the potential of digitalisation as an enabler of agroecology, a transformative, sustainable, healthy, resilient and inclusive approach to farming that can minimise farming pressure on ecosystems while generating fair economic returns for farmers.
- Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Robust evidence of existing innovative digital tools and technologies that specifically support the transition to agroecology for different crops, farming systems and pedo-climatic conditions;
- Improved understanding of the barriers, drivers, risks and usability aspects of digital tools that support the implementation of agroecological farming approaches for different crops and farming systems in different pedo-climatic regions;
- Greater awareness among different actors of the cost-effectiveness and the economic, environmental and social performance of digital tools that support the implementation of agroecology, as well as the barriers and incentives for their uptake and deployment;
- Pathways to address research and innovation (R&I) needs as regards digital tools that specifically support the transition to agroecology in the EU and Associated Countries.
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.
- To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
- eligible non-EU countries:
- countries associated to Horizon Europe
- low- and middle-income countries.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2TDsw0h