Networking
LIFE+FORAGE4CLIMATE - FORAGE SYSTEMS FOR LESS GHG EMISSION AND MORE SOIL CARBON SINK IN CONTINENTAL AND MEDITERRANEAN AGRICULTURAL AREAS (LIFE15 CCM/IT/000039)
Forage4Climate deals with forage systems in European areas with continental climate for cow’s milk and with Mediterranean climate for sheep and goat’s milk. Forage4Climate is a LIFE Climate Change Mitigation Project
LAND SUPPORT - Development of Integrated Web-Based Land Decision Support System Aiming Towards the Implementation of Policies for Agriculture and Environment
The project aims at developing a web-based, open-access GeoSpatial Decision Support System (S-DSS) devoted to reconciling agriculture, environmental sustainability and policy implementation. Overall, the S-DSS will contribute to the development and implementation of land use policies in Europe, and it will promote an integrated and participatory approach towards rural development and environmental policies allowing, among others, evaluation of trade-offs between different land uses.
DIVERFARMING
Crop diversification and low-input farming cross Europe: from practitioners' engagement and ecosystems services to incdeased revenues and value chain organisation.
LIFE OPAL - Optimizing agricultural land use to mitigate climate change
OPAL-Life started in 2015 and it aims at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture following the principle of sustainable intensification. This means combining environmental benefits, profitability of the farm and social aspects. OPAL-Life project is coordinated by Natural Research Institute Finland in collaboration with University of Helsinki, The Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI), The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), Nylands Svenska Lantbrukssällskap and ProAgria Rural Advisory Services. Transformation begins here – join us!
LIFE PREPAIR
The Po Valley of northern Italy represents an important non attaining zone for PM, NO2 and O3. This zone covers the territory of Italian northern Regions and includes several urban agglomerates such as Milan, Turin and Bologna. The area is densely populated and heavily industrialized. Tons of NOx, PM and NH3 are emitted in the atmosphere by a wide variety of pollution sources mainly related to traffic, domestic heating, industry and energy production sectors
BEST 4 SOIL
Healthy soils are of major importance for the future of the European horticultural and agricultural crop production. Especially in intensive production systems, soil borne diseases are a major factor with a negative impact on soil health. Newly developed best practices and sound crop rotations permit to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe. The adaptation of optimised crop rotation as a basis to prevent build-up of soil borne diseases, which is specific to the needs and situation of each individual grower With Best4Soil we are building a community of practice network across Europe by inter-connecting growers, advisers, educators and researchers. This network promotes knowledge ready for practice on 4 best practices (compost, green manure, anaerobic disinfestation, (bio) solarisation) for the control of soil borne diseases. Therefore we build a website and organize meetings and events in 20 European countries where we exchange knowledge on soil health with our communities of practice. The main objective of the Best4Soil thematic network is to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe. We provide open-access databases with information on the range of pathogens and nematodes that affect vegetable, arable and cover crops to help practitioners to build appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies.
Life agriCOlture
Co-financed by the European Union under the LIFE CCM 2018 program, agriCOlture aims to guide the transition of the livestock supply chain of the Emilian Apennine towards more efficient agronomic practices of soil conservation and to a new management of organic matter at farm and territorial scale. Starting point of the project is the significant potential of this sector of the mountain economy for Climate Change mitigation. More precisely, the project faces the structural difficulty of the emilian mountain agriculture in managing, in a sustainable and efficient way, the organic matter produced by the local important livestock sector, mainly involved in the Parmigiano Reggiano production. The complex morphology of the territory combined with the long duree condition of property fragmentation make the mantainance of field drainages and the balanced distribution of organic matter produced by the farms problematic and expensive. This ends up in marginalizing, deteriorating and finally expelling from the production cycles extended portions of agricultural land. The erosion of fertile soil due to the absence of these good management practices is enhanced by two widespread practices: on the one hand, a radicated tradition of deep tillage and, on the other hand, an excessively long cycle of tillage that bring grassland (mainly multi-year alfalfa fields) to a progressive depletion of productivity. To deal with this problem, agriCOlture aims to introduce agronomic best practices and appropriate governance strategies in order to demonstrate their effectiveness for the protection of soil organic carbon and in the recovering of marginal and hydrogeologically unstable soils. Concerning the governance, the project intends to update the traditional role that reclamation consortia have played in guaranteeing the conditions for inhabitation and for agricultural production in the Emilian Apennine. It does so by building an innovative partnership that merges the two large Consortia of Emilia Centrale and Burana, with a Research Center specialized in livestock production such as CRPA and an institution aimed at conservation such as the Tuscan–Emilian Apennine National Park.
LIFE CHIMERA - CHIckens Manure Exploitation and RevAluation - GA n. LIFE15 ENV/IT/000631
CHIMERA reinvents the chicken manure disposal process. Chicken manure requires specific treatment procedures in order to optimize its nutritious and, at the same time, reduce its environmental impact. Nowadays, chicken manure disposal is twofold: the waste is either bestowed to waste-to-energy plants or directly broadcasted on the ground. Costs related to storage, transport, disposal and/or broadcasting are high for the farmer. CHIMERA solves all those issues related to waste management. A “ready and easy to use” solution, which works in small farms or farm districts for meat (broiler) and/or eggs production laying hen. The dimension of the plant is limited and can be installed within any sized farm. CHIMERA’s ambition consists of transforming waste into a fertilizer, while producing energy. CHIMERA solution: from manure to flowers! This project becomes true thanks to the EU financing of the LIFE programme, GA n. LIFE15 ENV/IT/000631, and the collaboration between Tre P Engineering Srl, Italian engineering company and project coordinator, and Renders&Renders V.O.F., Dutch farmer.
LIFE MAGIS – MAde Green in Italy Scheme
The LIFE MAGIS – MAde Green in Italy Scheme project supports the diffusion of the “Made Green in Italy” scheme, promoted by the Italian Ministry of the Environment to valorize Italian products with the best environmental performances. LIFE MAGIS develops Product Category Rules for many supply chains in the agro-food, window production, and leather sectors which are verified and tested with pilot companies. The project organizes communication activities directed toward citizens and final consumers to experiment with the most effective ways to communicate the environmental value of products and has also the aim to promote the Made Green in Italy scheme to other supply chains, sectors, and European countries. LIFE MAGIS makes available datasets and tools to make the adoption of the scheme easier for interested companies.
GREAT LIFE - Growing REsilience AgricolTure – Life
GREAT LIFE is the European project led by the Department of Agro-Alimentary Sciences and Technologies, of the University of Bologna. Partners include, Kilowatt, Alce Nero, the Cento Municipality and LCE From agricultural production, to processing, to consumers, our goal is to experiment with new resilient crops in order to reduce climate change impact on agricultural activities in the Po Valley, as well as in Italy as a whole, thereby helping to sustain farmers’ income, reducing water consumption and producing quality foods for the final market. GREAT LIFE is a single community that believes in the value of food for the protection of natural resources, the environment and health, with the aim of promoting awareness regarding the contribution that food choices can have on the environment, health and the economy.
Life ADA – Adaptation in Agriculture
Life ADA – Adaptation in Agriculture – (LIFE19 CCA/IT/001257) wants to increase the ability of farmers and producer organizations (in the wine, fruit and vegetable and dairy sectors) to implement adaptation strategies to climate change. To achieve this goal, a public-private partnership has been set up between insurance, public administration (regions), scientific institutes and aggregated forms of producers (OPI and cooperatives) which has the task of: transferring knowledge on climate scenarios and risk management, as well as measures for adaptation to climate change; build adequate tools to support the decision-making process and in the definition of adaptation plans at farm and supply chain level; define a regional policy strategy to support farmers' adaptation plans; promote an innovative approach in order to maintain the long-term insurability of farmers despite the increase in catastrophic and systemic risks.
LIFE Agromitiga - Development of climate change mitigation strategies through carbon-smart agriculture
The LIFE Agromitiga project will promote a low-carbon agricultural system aimed at enhancing the mitigative capacity of soil as a carbon sink. The project will also assess the impact of different Conservation Agriculture practices; and will quantify the mitigative capacity of soil management systems in the Mediterranean Basin (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain), in both herbaceous and perennial crops. The project focuses on the development of a method to calculate the carbon footprint at different crop cultivation stages, in line with international standards, and a tool to quantify the increase of carbon in soils due to better soil management practices. This will significantly improve knowledge about the carbon content of agricultural soils and demonstrate that Conservation Agriculture can reduce GHG emissions in the Mediterranean Basin. Furthermore, the project will promote the implementation of soil management systems that mitigate climate change through training and awareness raising.
GECO2 - Green Economy and CO2
The GECO2 project will introduce innovative measures to monitor and offset CO2 emissions through an effective cross-border cooperation. GECO2 will directly involve the agricultural sector, urging it to adopt sustainable farming practices and interfacing it with industrial and services companies in order to ensure the start of a voluntary credit carbon market, with gains both from an economic and environmental point of view. The whole project will guide industry and consumers towards new green market opportunities and will help local governance to improve strategies to tackle climate change.
IWMPRAISE - Integrated Weed Management: PRActical Implementation and Solutions for Europe
IWMPRAISE aims to support the implementation of Integrated Weed Management (IWM), demonstrating that adoption of IWM supports more sustainable cropping systems both agronomically and environmentally, which are resilient to external impacts.
LIFE AGROPAPER® - TOWARDS TO ZERO PLASTIC AGRICULTURE
The project is focused on replacing the plastic mulch used in agriculture by biodegradable and compostable paper mulch to demonstrate that the paper is a solution environmentally sustainable for the preservation of the planet. During the period of 2021-2023 the paper will be validated by testing it on different crops during several crops cycles to show the benefits of incorporating paper mulch into crops.
DRIVE LIFE - Drought Resilience Improvement in Vineyard Ecosystems
The DRIVE LIFE project plans to address how to tackle the issue of concurrent meteorological drought and water scarcity, finding solutions for improved vineyard ecosystems resilience. This to maintain competiveness while lowering vineyard water footprint and making additional water supply unnecessary.
LEGUMINOSE - The way to a green transition
The LEGUMINOSE project will identify the obstacles to legume-cereal intercropping and boost awareness and acceptance among farmers by providing knowledge and demonstrations of the economic, environmental, and social benefits derving from this tecnique. To overcome barriers to intercropping implementation, the project will establish a network of field trials and farm labs across Europe (IT, DE, DR, ES, PL, CZ, UK) and in Egypt and Pakistan.
