Sustainable Intensification in Africa

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

African and European agriculture share the common challenge of moving towards more sustainable ways of agricultural production. Both regions aim to ensure food production and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural activities in the face of climate change, more unpredictable water supply and increased degradation of (land) resources. Systems approaches are needed to optimise agricultural productivity as well as the delivery of ecosystem services.

Environmental modifications such as climate change and globalisation are increasing the risk of infectious animal diseases emerging in new locations with greater frequency, and this is particularly relevant with vector borne diseases. These diseases have a major impact not only on livestock production and related economy but also on global food security and trade. Some of these emerging diseases also threaten human health (zoonoses). The African continent suffers from a number of vector-borne diseases, sometimes with heavy burden, although it is not always fully ascertained. A number of these diseases occur or do present a risk of introduction and spread also in Europe. The complex transmission cycles can make it difficult to assess risk and organise control. We need to get further knowledge on these diseases, not least on their vectors, in order to improve their control, and assess their potential spread all over Europe.

A. [2019]: African Farming Systems, sustainable intensification pathways (RIA)

Activities shall seek to implement and test systems approaches for the sustainable intensification of primary production in Africa, taking into account its long term economic support to local communities. The proposed research should address the improvement of agricultural practices by tackling land and water management (including land degradation where appropriate) plant protection and pest control (including integrated pest management) and sustainable soil management (including its quality and nutrients uptake) for sustainable intensification. The importance of traditional agricultural practices like grazing methods, livestock, crops and legumes should be duly reflected. Emphasis should be given to farming systems that support restoration of land, increase land productivity and/or bring land back into production. Proper attention should be given to the importance of gender in African agricultural production.

For proper analysis, a range of different systems should be included (e.g. organic farming, agroecology, agroforestry). While presenting results the importance of scale of the analysis and its applicability should be taken into account. The analysed systems should include socio-economic aspects, analyse its resilience to climate change, farm income and where pertinent also cultural aspects of farming. Preference will be given to proposals focusing on specific regions of Africa.

Proposals fall under the concept of the ‘multi-actor approach’^[1]. Proposals should include a task to cluster with other projects financed under the topic and with the cooperation platform established under SFS-33-2018.

B.[2019]: Soil system for Africa (RIA)

For the implementation of the EU-Africa R&I Partnership on FNSSA a comparable and open database on agricultural soils information is needed. It is expected that a minimum of 20 000 sampling points will be sufficient to create a database with standard soil properties (a similar procedure to the one used for LUCAS^[2] - European database - should be developed).

The soil samples will only be taken from the agricultural land and analysed by one laboratory for the: physical and chemical parameters. As a minimum the following parameters should be analysed: particle size (clay, silt and sand content), pH (acidity and alkalinity), organic carbon, carbonate content, phosphorus content, total nitrogen content and extractable potassium content. In addition an analysis of heavy metal content and other chemical residues in selected sub-samples might be proposed in order to assess the risk of soil contamination. Based on the analysed samples a set of indicators for monitoring of state of land soil, water and ecosystem should be proposed. Other physical, chemical and biological parameters for soil test might be proposed along with the specific indicators for which they will be used. The indicators should be developed as a part of the long-term implementation of FNSSA and its contribution to the SDGs discussion. Presentation of data should be provided in an open data and map viewer and should include four aspect pictures of where the soil sample was taken and should link with open earth data from e.g. the Copernicus programme and the project funded under H2020 topic SFS-43-2017^[3]. It is expected that the open database will contain at least a minimum of 20 000 soil sample analysed by one laboratory. The final methodology should be developed in cooperation with and validated by the Joint Research Centre and the Global Soil Partnership – ITPS African members.

Proposals should include a task to cluster with other projects financed under the topic and with the cooperation platform established under SFS-33-2018.

C.[2020]: Vector-borne diseases in Africa (RIA)

The proposals should aim to develop knowledge on selected vector-borne diseases affecting terrestrial livestock, whether they also affect humans or not. The proposals may address one or more diseases. Priority should be given to diseases with either a serious impact in Africa, or a risk of spread to Europe with significant consequences, or both. Activities should cover the ecology of the pathogens and vectors, and epidemiological features, including the risk of short and long distance transmission and the capacity for the disease to establish in and spread to new areas, with potentially features different from the original area. The burden of disease in animals (and humans if relevant), and the socio-economic impact should be further assessed as appropriate. Systems and/or networks to improve epidemiological surveillance strategies in domestic and wild species should be developed/strengthened. Activities should also address detection and control tools, including prevention, monitoring, diagnostics and:

• Vector competence studies including exploration of vector-pathogen interactions simulating field conditions.
• Map, explore and predict vector densities and spread and the role of the vector in spreading the disease.
• Study the relationship between immunity and pathogen spread including the role of pre-existing immunity and the role of vaccinations.
• Exploration of livestock species, both African and European breed, for susceptibility to the diseases.
• New diagnostic methods for pathogen or specific antibody detection.

Projects should include capacity-building and training activities. The projects should build on results and experiences from related EU projects and existing networks in this field.

Proposals should include a task to cluster with other projects financed under this scope and with the cooperation platform established under SFS-33-2018^[4].

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution form the EU of up to EUR 7.5 million for sub-topic A, EUR 5 million for sub-topic B and up to EUR 6 million for sub-topic C would allow this specific challenge to be addressed properly. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

In the short to medium term:

• Boost the impact of Africa-EU joint research at local level by addressing the entire value-chain, strengthening capacity-building and focusing on demonstration projects and pilot actions to bring research and innovation results to the users (sub-topic A);
• Provide simple tools and solutions for preserving and increasing natural resources of specific agro-system (sub-topic A);
• Identification of methods and tools for improving soil condition for water retention, increase in nutrient and organic matter (sub-topic A);
• Proposed methods and solutions for different farming systems should include potential of transferability and scale at which solution can be implemented (sub-topic A).
• Solutions and tools for increasing farm income within sustainability of long term farming (sub-topic A);
• Based on the soil sample analysis, provide a set of key indicators for soil assessment in Africa (sub-topic B).
• Funded activities will contribute to better prevention and minimisation and mitigation of selected vector-borne diseases of livestock (sub-topic C). More specifically they will:
  • enable strengthened surveillance systems/networks and allow an improved view on occurrence and burden of selected disease(s);
  • improve assessment of the risks of introduction and spread among livestock and humans of the selected disease(s) in new areas;
  • provide improved tools for rapid detection of selected pathogens, preferably on-site;
  • improve prevention and control of the selected disease(s);
  • enable a more focused targeting of resources for controlling the selected disease(s);

In the long term: for sub-topic A - improve agricultural production potential and income of farmers and for sub-topic B- provide an open soil dataset with a set of key indicators with methodology for which soil samples and the time line of indicators can be independently repeated in support of monitoring of soil and land degradation. The set of indicators should as much as possible support the relevant SDGs implementation discussion.

Gender
Socio-economic science and humanities
RRI
International cooperation

[1]See definition of the 'multi-actor approach' in the introduction to this Work Programme part.

[2]Number of publications related to LUCAS soil component can be found under the following link: http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/resource-type/documents

[3]https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2016_2017/main/h2020-wp1617-food_en.pdf

[4]The awarded project acronym is LEAP4FNSSA