Promote co-operation between knowledge communities, enhance opportunities and address challenges relating to sustainable agriculture.
Agriculture. Photo: Karsten Würth / Unsplash
The programme for Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change is now issuing a call for proposals for research projects. The available budget is approximately NOK 60 million.
Background
Sustainable agriculture requires viable farmland and soil. Research is needed on alternative cropping systems: no-tilling systems, perennial crops, cover crops, intercropping, or mixtures of varieties/plant genotypes. The question is how this can be done efficiently and sustainably in order to overcome rapid changes in the climate, satisfy demands for climate change mitigation, and uphold the quantity and quality of food production.
Climate change will affect agriculture and influence food and feed security in the Nordic and Baltic regions in several ways. Some consequences can be positive, such as a longer growing season or an increase in CO2 to stimulate photosynthesis, while others, such as increased CO2 emissions due to an increase in respiration, drought, floods, or influx of new pests and diseases, will have a negative effect.
Consumer demands are expected to change, resulting in an increased demand for locally produced plant-based agricultural products produced in an environmentally and climate-friendly way. Climate change and diversified market demand are global trends. Besides the demand for efficient, healthy, safe, and diverse food production, there is also a need to limit the environmental footprint of agriculture itself and minimise the production of greenhouse gasses, thus mitigating climate change.
Aim of the call and thematic framework
The aim of the Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Programme is to promote co-operation between knowledge communities in the participating countries and to enhance opportunities and address challenges relating to sustainable agriculture. The main objectives of the programme are to strengthen research collaboration between the participating countries and to fund excellent research that has an impact both within and beyond academia. The programme seeks to develop research networks in the region to produce innovative analyses and methods, as well as essential knowledge for successful implementation. The programme is intended for interdisciplinary projects that combine disciplines which rarely collaborate, or that pursue an original research question that demands a fine balance of skills from the different disciplines proposed in the application. In addition, the programme aims to support early career researchers and their mobility.
The funding parties have identified four thematic areas of the programme:
- Plants adapted for future Nordic and Baltic conditions
- Increased local and regional protein production for food and feed
- Plants and soil as a carbon sink
- Transformation towards climate-smart and profitable local and regional agriculture
The call strives for co-operation between research fields within different thematic areas. All proposals must address two or more of the thematic areas. The background and the framework of the programme are further elaborated on in the programme memorandum. Applicants are advised to read this document carefully.
Please note that NordForsk may make changes to the call text until six weeks before the deadline. Any such changes will be stated clearly.