ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production

The aim of the “ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop production“ (SusCrop) is to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of crop research, in particular in relation to crop production. The SusCrop partners, a consortium of European programme managers and programme owners, will provide a joint call for proposals in the R&D area of sustainable crop production. It will be co-funded by the partners of the consortium and the European Commission and will address the following research topics: • Enhancement of predictive breeding technologies and development of new genotypes leading to new phenotypes and crop varieties • Development and exploitation of novel integrated pest and crop management methods and practices • Improvement of resource-use efficiency of crops and cropping systems • Systemic research on agricultural crops as part of an ecosystem (“plant as a meta-organism”) The potential of further joint funding activities of the consortium without cofunding of the EC will be proved and implemented as appropriate. By a broad range of accompanying measures that go beyond these funding activities, it will further contribute to: • Harmonise data collection on sustainable cropping to deliver a database that can be mined to build models and indices of sustainability and resilience • Develop methods of assessing the sustainability and resilience of cropping systems at different levels (e.g. field, farm, landscape) using ICT-based knowledge technologies Additionally it will provide a strategic direction for a sustainable crop production for the future and will work in close collaboration with the Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE-JPI).