Bio-based fertilisers and soil amendments: a path to sustainable agriculture
Synthetic fertilisers have enabled to more than double agricultural production over the last century. However, despite their critical importance for our food systems, their widespread use generates multiple negative impacts (e.g., GHG emissions, soil degradation, eutrophication) and endangers environmental and human health. Furthermore, they are obtained from non-renewable sources (e.g., phosphate and potassium ores) and rely on highly energy demanding processes for their manufacture (e.g., ammonia production through the Haber-Bosch process contributes to approximately 2% of the global carbon emissions) posing a global sustainability challenge.There is therefore a pressing need to reduce the use and impacts of synthetic fertilisers in [...]
Tackling specific requirements in CBE JU project proposals
The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) is a partnership between the European Union and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) that aims to promote a competitive European circular bio-based industry. In line with this objective, CBE JU offers funding opportunities for projects developing innovative and sustainable bio-based solutions. CBE JU project proposals follow the rules and procedures of Horizon Europe (HE), the EU’s research and innovation programme. However, there are some specific requirements to this call, further described in the work programme. Although these requirements may vary slightly between different calls, most of them have been consistent across [...]
Five trends in the agri-food sector for 2024
The agri-food sector has paramount importance for all the society. All of us need to eat, and the sector represents a main contribution to the GDP of many countries. It also faces a wide range of challenges, with rising production costs, growing threat from international conflict and climate change-induced loss of productivity, and unsustainable practices leading to GHG emissions and other negative impacts on the environment. 2024 is a complicated moment, with widespread farmer protests, especially in the EU, that are closely related to these challenges. There is a pressing need to find a balance between farmers’ needs, productivity, [...]