The project “LIFE AGRESTIC – Reduction of agricultural greenhouse gases emissions through innovative cropping systems”, part of the wider aim to reduce the climate change through LIFE Programme for the Environment and Climate Change 2014-2020 (financed by UE), will contribute spreading innovative tools for environmental protection and efficient use of resources in agriculture.
Life Agrestic will involve stakeholders such as agrofood industries, farmers associations, farms and farming cooperatives, local and national policy makers, who are directly involved and interested in the chains relevant to the N- and C efficient crop systems (ECSs).
The Stakeholder platform will be held by:
- important Italian agri-food companies of the sector (wheat-pasta, tomato-sauces; sunflower-oil; barley-beer; legumes; legumes-pasta and tins);
- regional and national authorities;
- farmers’ associations;
- other organizations / foundations / associations;
- farms / POs.
Interested parties will be actively involved through participation in meetings, questionnaires, field visits etc.
The Project
“LIFE AGRESTIC” aims at fostering the adoption by EU farmers of innovative and efficient cropping systems with a high climate-change mitigation potential, based on legumes cultivation and catch crops such as alfalfa clover and others, able to mitigate the climate change effects.
The Project, lasting four and a half years, will involve six partners: Horta, ART-ER, Isea, New Business Media Srl (Edagricole), Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant’Anna and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Piacenza.
Agrestic will take place in Italy (Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Apulia) and will carry on the insertion of legumes and catch crop in the cereal and industry crops (tomato and sunflower) rotation, to reducing greenhouse gases emissions and increasing carbon sequestration in comparison to Conventional Cropping Systems (CCSs).
Agrestic will also develop an innovative decision support tool (DSS) for efficient management of the entire crop system (multi-year rotations of different crops), reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, etc. and non-renewable resources (soil and fuels) and increasing or maintaining product quality and safety. The project includes the development of a prototype for automatic and continuous monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions from the soil and a quality label, and also a mechanisms of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) will be developed.