The HORIZON 2020 societal challenges highlight the need to innovate on agricultural practices that increase agroecosystem resilience and foster efficient use of available water and nutrients. This is particularly relevant for baby food production systems since there are stringent European regulations that limit the amount of chemical residue levels in baby food. The HARVEST project will develop a novel soil health strategy to decrease the use of chemicals in DANONE’s fruit production systems for baby food that simultaneously enhance soil-borne disease suppressiveness and nutrient/water use efficiency while maintaining fruit productivity. HARVEST will apply biodiversity practices consisting of growing plant species mixtures in the inter-row space between apple trees. I will test the hypothesis that growing inter-row plant species, mulching, and mechanical weeding have a profoundly positive effects on the sustainability of apple orchard topsoils, as measured by soil disease suppressiveness, soil fertility, and water regulation. With HARVEST, I aim to: i) identify the biodiversity practices that enhance below and above- ground apple orchard properties towards a more resilient and nutrient/water use efficiency orchard, ii) develop a soil health strategy to be applied on fruit production systems, iii) enhance partners and societal awareness about DANONEs sustainability programme and its positive action at decreasing chemical use, enhancing food quality, protecting ecosystems and improving human health. Main deliverables will include a list of soil health key performance indicators to advise DANONE on soil management strategies for fruit production systems, soil health traits database for apple orchards and peer-review research papers. Overall HARVEST will guide future agro-food policies to enhance soil ecosystem properties, and promote agriculture less dependent on chemicals.

Animal-based proteins constitute a significant ingredient in European food systems. Dependence on animal-based proteins comes with substantial environmental and health impacts. Hence, the transition toward plant protein-based food systems is now more critical than ever. MICROBIOMES4SOY is an interdisciplinary and intersectoral project that employs a Multi-Actor Approach to ensure that food system actors' needs and key components relevant to the FOOD 2030 priorities are addressed. MICROBIOMES4SOY aims to enable transition pathways by delivering a comprehensive understanding of the microbiomes along the food and feed chains. Exploiting the microbiomes' full potential is essential to ensure sustainable and nutritious food and feed as they are important players throughout the food system, ranging from primary production, where microbes improve plant growth and health, to food production based on microbial processes and ultimately linking to the interactions between animal/human microbiomes and host health. MICROBIOMES4SOY focuses on the soya bean model system, an important protein-rich crop. The project will develop second-generation microbiome applications that sustain crop productivity and improve soya bean seeds' nutritional value and safety under different environmental conditions. MICROBIOMES4SOY will test the effect of dietary intervention based on soya bean-derived protein on the human gut microbiome and health and elaborate microbiome-informed dietary recommendations. The project will also employ microbiome-based solutions to develop novel aquafeeds and establish their effects on the fish gut microbiome and health. MICROBIOMES4SOY consortium comprises 19 partners from 11 countries contributing complementary expertise on soil, plant, human and animal microbiomes, bioinformatics, modelling, crop production, aquaculture, food/feed production, food systems mapping and scientific communication.

Agriculture soils are being heavily affected by climate change and are highly vulnerable to degradation and desertification, particularly in the Mediterranean and southern regions of the EU. If climate change is not mitigated, yields of crops like wheat, maize and sugar beet could decrease in southern EU by up to 50 % by 2050. Although agriculture has been signalled as a significant contributor to GHG emissions (13% of EU total emissions), it is also one of the sectors with the biggest potential to adapt to and mitigate climate change. In this sense, Carbon Farming appears as a promising solution for soils’ health and for the sustainability of EU agriculture. LILAS4SOILS will put in place 5 Living Labs (LLs) in 6 countries to co-create the adoption of Carbon Farming solutions within farmers, agri-food businesses, researchers and local authorities, and implement Carbon Farming Practices -CFPs- (peatland management, agroforestry, livestock and manure management, and nutrient management, maintaining soil organic carbon) in 85-100 demo-sites. CFPs impact on soil carbon sequestration and environmental co-benefits will be assessed through the adoption of homogeneous Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) technologies. The 5-year project involves 24 expert partners, +25 stakeholders will part of each LL for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange (20 co-creation workshops to be held) and +71 farmers will be engaged in CFPs implementation, ensuring the multi-actor approach. 10 training workshops (supported by 21 materials), 10 policy workshops (supported by 2 sets of recommendations per LL), 8 cross-fertilisation and synergies workshops and 2 replication workshops within other regions in EU are envisaged as part of the project's focus on knowledge transfer. Through directed Open Calls, LILAS4SOILS will encourage the participation of 35-50 additional farmers and support the testing of 15 MRV innovative technologies that overcome the limitations of the conventional ones.

In order to reduce GHG-emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels and incresease carbon sequestration and storage a strong systemic approach is required. Different single solutions exist for different production systems, but if one wants to break the glass ceiling new organisational, technical and financial solutions are requested. These solution have to be supported by voluntarist policies. ClieNFarms is based on 20 demonstration case-studies (I3S) where systemic innovative solutions will be tested and evaluated using up-to-date modeling approaches and multicriteria assessment tools. These case-studies will pave the diversity of the production systems (crops, cattle, dairy, special crop productions, etc) and the diversity of geographical situations (from East to West and North to South of Europe, plus one in New-Zealand). The solutions will be co-designed with farmers and the surrounding ecosystem (R&D, finance, supply chain, etc) through creative arena in a living-lab like structure. Involving finance and supply chain will help creating an enabling environment for farmers transition to climate-neutral farms. I3S structure aims to allow for 1 demonstration farm to reach 10 lead commercial farms and then 100 outreach farms. With the help of the supply a much larger number of farmers will be reached. All the solutions will be recorded in the ClieNFarms data hub that will be an open catalog for every one interested in climate mitigation in the agricultural sector. Different guidelines and tools will be part of the outputs of the projects. A large dissemination of the results project will be made through professional newspapers, scientific articles, social networks, etc. ClieNFarms will also develop bricks for capacity building allowing to show in a short sequence pros and cons of the different solutions and tools. ClieNFarms will create a dialog with other on-going project and with the EC. ClieNFarms gather 33 partners and will last 4 years.