Institut für Biologischen Pflanzenschutz
Achieving food safety and security while preserving the natural resources is a central aim of the European Union’s (EU) Farm to Fork strategy (F2F). Promoting and increasing organic farming in EU to at least 25% of the agricultural land by 2030 is key to support the F2F and biodiversity strategies’ objective. However, organic farming still relies on the use of certain contentious inputs in plant production (e.g. copper, mineral oil, Spinosad, conventional manure) and animal husbandry (e.g. antibiotics, anthelmintics, synthetic vitamins). Alternative tools and techniques comprising technical and societal innovations have been developed in the past decade and are now close to being used at scale. The key objective of SCALE-it is to increase the availability, accessibility and adoption by farmers of cost-effective alternatives through the development, testing and promoting of alternative solutions to contentious inputs in organic production. SCALE-it will reduce the dependency on (a) critical plant protection products (lead of this work package by JKI), (b) manure from conventional farms, (c) antibiotics and anthelmintics in animal health and (d) synthetic and genetically modified derived vitamins in animal nutrition. SCALE-it addresses the key objective by (i) facilitating the development of functional alternatives for use in practice, (ii) demonstrating and quantifying the efficacy at scale under various pedoclimatic conditions, (iii) ensuring safety to the environment and consumers as well as economic viability, (iv) determining and ensuring acceptance of novel solutions for organic agriculture, and (v) providing scientific information and recommendations for policy instruments ensuring fair and implementable transition pathways. SCALE-it applies a multi-actor approach with an extensive interaction/co-creation with stakeholders.
Europäische Union
