GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Improving farmers’ uptake of agroecological practices calls for specific support measures and for the design of specific business cases at the farm and landscape levels. Activities should improve knowledge of the contribution of agroecological practices to climate change mitigation, increased adaptation of farming to climate change, and preservation and enhancement of biodiversity, while ensuring farm profitability, thus providing an important contribution to policy design. Proposals should cover the wide range of crops and farming systems present in the EU and Associated Countries agricultural sector, from conventional to organic. Proposals should ensure biodiversity preservation or enhancement and overall farm profitability. Proposals should develop and test innovative mechanisms to accompany farmers in implementing and/or switching to agroecological practices that contribute to mitigating climate change and other negative environmental impacts. Proposals should undertake an analysis of the social, environmental and economic sustainability performance of such strategies and analyse the potential to integrate such practices in business cases at farm level, including exploring the potential of labelling of products linked to agroecological practices in support of and complying with the current relevant legal framework and, where the scope of activities would cover the food system, the future EU framework for food sustainability labelling to promote and scale-up their uptake.