Agroecological approaches for sustainable weed management

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

A successful proposal should support the farm to fork’s strategy objective of a transition to a fair, healthy and resilient European agriculture, notably its objective to promote agroecology, and the target to reduce the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides^[1], by unfolding the potential of agroecology to provide alternative weeding strategies that reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides used as herbicides. This will support the transition to sustainable, safe, productive, climate-neutral and resilient farming systems that minimise the pressure on ecosystems while ensuring fair economic returns for farmers.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Evidence of optimal and innovative combinations of holistic alternative weeding techniques based on agroecological approaches in different European pedo-climatic conditions for a wide range of crops and farming systems, including conventional, organic and mixed farming;
• Quantitative and qualitative evidence of the social, economic and environmental sustainability and performance, as well as trade-offs, of different alternative weeding strategies across Europe at farm, landscape and regional levels, and in the medium to long term;
• Robust evidence of factors influencing farmers’ decision-making and improved knowledge co-creation and feedback among actors in the food value chain, resulting in ease of use, end-user acceptance and increased implementation of alternative and holistic weeding strategies based on an integrated use of agroecological approaches;
• Improved, open access to data on current weed management practices and use of herbicides across several representative European agro-ecosystems.

Herbicides have become the foundation of weed management in EU farming systems. Given that herbicides can have harmful effects on the environment, non-target organisms, and animal and human health, reducing reliance on these products has become a policy objective. Sustainable and effective non-chemical alternatives to reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides are largely lacking for most crops and farming systems in the EU. Weed-related challenges can be better addressed as a part of broad-based, holistic strategies such as agroecology^[2] that, by relying on and maximising the use of ecological processes to support agricultural production, have the potential to advance ecosystem sustainability while ensuring profitability of the farming activity. Agroecology is a holistic approach that relies on and maximises the use of ecological processes to support agricultural production. By working more with nature and ecosystem services, agroecology has the potential to increase the circularity, diversification and autonomy of farms, and drive a full transformation of farming systems, from input substitution and beyond. In parallel, progressing towards digitalisation or the implementation of new digital technologies is one of the main ambitions facing EU agriculture. The development and promotion of alternative weed management techniques and strategies that do not only rely on chemical herbicides are required. Moreover, factors such as soil and climatic conditions, as well as the type of crop and the farming system can largely determine the spatial and temporal development of major weeds and, therefore, the effectiveness and efficiency of these strategies. Agroecological or nature-based principles can provide systemic, sustainable, context-specific and socially acceptable alternatives to address these challenges.

Activities should advance knowledge, build capacities and deliver innovative systemic and holistic solutions to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of chemical pesticides used as herbicides, and will address the needs of a wide range of crops (arable and permanent) and farming systems, both conventional and organic. Proposals should cover all EU and Associated Countries biogeographical/pedo-climatic regions. Proposals must implement the ‘multi-actor approach’ and should build on and expand the achievements of relevant past and ongoing EU-funded research projects.

Proposals should include a clear plan on how they will collaborate with other projects funded under this topic. Projects should ensure collaboration with projects funded under the following topics in this work programme: HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-05: Agroecological approaches for climate change mitigation, resilient agricultural production and enhanced biodiversity and HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01-03: Digitalisation as an enabler of agroecological farming systems. Proposals should identify optimal combinations of agroecological solutions for socially, economically and environmentally sustainable alternative weed management strategies that reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides. They should do so by capitalising on the opportunities offered by cropping system design, mechanical weed management techniques, soil management practices, breeding, bio-based herbicides, precision and site-specific weeding and digitalised weed monitoring, including by using technology and knowledge of weed biology. Proposals should test and evaluate the sustainability, performance and profitability of these strategies versus classical chemical weed management approaches in the medium- to long-term and at farm, landscape and regional levels, undertaking qualitative and quantitative estimates of trade-offs, and identifying gaps and needs towards non-chemical weed management. Proposals should undertake comprehensive analysis of the socio-economic aspects involved in the adoption of alternative weeding strategies based on agroecological approaches and of the factors influencing farmers’ decision-making, including consumer and market aspects, like risk perception and acceptance of food produced with new weed management strategies. Proposals should develop and test strategies involving all relevant actors for knowledge co-creation and feedback to demonstrate and accompany farmers in implementing and/or switching to agroecological weed management. Proposals should develop a repository of current weed management practices and use of herbicides in several representative EU and Associated Countries agro-ecosystems.

Digital Agenda
Artificial Intelligence

[1]The farm to fork strategy sets the target to reduce by 50% the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides and reduce use by 50% of more hazardous pesticides

[2]

http://www.fao.org/3/i9037en/i9037en.pdf