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BIOFECTOR is an integrated project with the aim to reduce input of mineral fertilisers in European agriculture by development of specifically adapted bio-effectors (BEs) to improve the efficiency of alternative fertilisation strategies, such as organic and low-input farming, use of fertilisers based on waste recycling products and fertiliser placement technologies. Bio-effectors addressed comprise fungal strains of Trichoderma, Penicillium and Sebacinales, as well as bacterial strains of Bacillus and Pseudomonades with well-characterized root growth promoting and nutrient-solubilising potential. Natural extraction products of seaweed, compost and plant extracts, as well as their purified active compounds with protective potential against biotic and abiotic stresses are also tested in various combinations. These features offer perspectives for a more efficient use of nutrients by strategic combination with the alternative fertilisation strategies. Maize, wheat and tomato are chosen as representative crops. Laboratory and European-wide field experiments assure product adaptation to the various geo-climatic conditions characteristic for European agriculture. The final goal is the development of viable alternatives to the conventional practice of mineral fertilisation as contribution to a more efficient management of the non-renewable resources of mineral nutrients, energy and water, to preserve soil fertility and to counteract the adverse environmental impact of agricultural production.
OPTIBIOCAT is a 48 months project aimed at developing biocatalysts based on feruloyl esterases (FAEs) and glucuronoyl esterases (GEs) for production of phenolic fatty- and sugar- esters with antioxidant activity for cosmetic industry, expanding the number/type of industrial biotransformations. Selected FAEs and GEs available within the consortium will be improved for their thermo- and solvent- resistance and substrate specificity by site-directed mutagenesis and directed evolution. Novel enzymes will be discovered by mining for new genes from available genomes. An inventory of novel FAEs and GEs will be developed including 50 fungal and 500 bacterial esterases, 25 site-directed and 20 directed evolved mutants. Enzymatic performances will be optimized to enhance the yield (up to the theoretical yield of 100%) and productivity (up to 0.5-1 g/l/h) of reactions giving the main targeted antioxidants: butyl ferulate, p-coumarate, caffeate, sinapate and 5-O-(trans-feruloyl)-arabinofuranose (using FAEs), glucuronate and benzyl glucuronate (using GEs). FAEs and GEs will be also tested for production of other compounds with improved biological activity and properties of hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity for cosmetic applications. Cost-effective methods will be developed for production of the new biocatalysts, in the g/L scale, and for their technical application to produce antioxidants for cosmetic industry, up to 20L. Enzyme immobilization will increase their recyclability up to ten cycles. The ability of the developed catalysts to work in conditions miming the industrial ones with reduced use of solvents and lower temperature than the chemical routes will be demonstrated. The techno-economic viability and environmental friendliness will be assessed considering a full industrial scale scenario. OPTIBIOCAT involves a highly skilled and multidisciplinary partnership of 16 partners from 8 EU countries, and it is a strongly industry driven project through the participation of 8 SMEs and 1 large company.
Subprojects: - Identifying general relationships between semi-natural habitats, on-farm management and biodiversity (WP1) - Linking biodiversity to ecosystem services on farmland (WP2) - Mitigation of biodiversity loss and promotion of ecosystem services (WP3). The next few decades will witness a rapidly increasing demand for agricultural products. This growing demand needs to be met largely through intensification (produce more from the same land surface) because there is little scope for an increase in agricultural area. Ecological intensification has been proposed as a promising solution. Ecological intensification is the optimization of all provisioning, regulating and supporting ecosystem services in the agricultural production process. As such it advocates to maintain or enhance agricultural production through the promotion of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. The LIBERATION project aims to provide the evidence-base for the potential of ecological intensification to sustainably enhance food security with minimal negative impacts on the environment. This requires a basic insight in how biodiversity contributes to various ecosystem services and subsequently how ecosystem services contribute to yield and farm income. Key questions that will be addressed are: - How landscape structure and land-use interact in the provisioning of ecosystem services; - How farmland biodiversity is related to multiple ecosystem services; - Whether there are trade-offs between different ecosystem services; - How ecosystem services are related to farm income; - How ecosystem services may be influenced by policy measures at the local, national or EU scale. LIBERATION will focus on the ecosystem services pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling and soil fertility, thus examining both above- and below-ground ecosystem services as well as possible trade-offs and synergies. Implications for greenhouse gas emissions will be explored throughout all activities in the project. Ecosystem service delivery will be expressed in terms of (their contribution to) agricultural yield and in terms of farm income.
GRACE pursues two key research objectives: Firstly, it aims to provide comprehensive reviews of the existing evidence on the health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM plants - considering both risks and possible benefits. GRACEs review strategy will go beyond what has been done before. Reviews will be conducted in a systematic, transparent and inclusive way based on procedures originally developed for evidence-based medicine (systematic reviews). The results will be made accessible to the public via an open access database and other channels. Secondly, GRACE will test various types of animal feeding trials and alternative methods without the use of animals in order to determine how suitable they are and what useful scientific information they provide for health risk assessments of GM food and feed. At present there are different views at the EU level and between Member States on the need for and scientific value of such studies. The project will also check whether extended feeding trials can improve risk assessments compared to in-vitro, in-silico and omics methods available today. Transparency and user and stakeholder involvement and scrutiny are key features of GRACE. The project will be working closely with representatives from a broad range of stakeholder organisations as well as with professional risk assessors and risk managers. This includes planning and preparing the research activities as well as discussing the results and drawing conclusions. For this purpose, the GRACE project will organise workshops and conduct interviews and surveys and prepare feed-back reports to ensure that the information and the views of stakeholders can feed into this project. IFZ is leading the work package for user and stakeholder involvement and will also work on the core review process.
Micro B3 will develop innovative bioinformatic approaches and a legal framework to make large-scale data on marine viral, bacteria; archaeal and protists genomes and metagenomes accessible for marine ecosystems biology and to define new targets for biotechnological applications. Micro B3 will build upon a highly interdisciplinary consortium of 32 academic and industrial partners comprising world-leading experts in bioinformatics, computer science, biology, ecology, oceanography, bioprospecting and biotechnology, as well as legal aspects. icro B3 is based on a strong user- and data basis from ongoing European sampling campaigns to long-term ecological research sites. For the first time a strong link between oceanographic and molecular microbial research will be established to integrate global marine data with research on microbial biodiversity and functions. The Micro B3 Information System will provide innovative open source software for data-processing, -integration, -visualisation, and -accessibility. Interoperability will be the key for seamless data transfer of sequence and contextual data to public repositories. Micro B3 will allow taking full advantage of current sequencing technologies to efficiently exploit large-scale sequence data in an environmental context. Micro B3 will create integrated knowledge to inform marine ecosystems biology and modelling. Moreover, it will facilitate detecting candidate genes to be explored by targeted laboratory experiments for biotechnology and for assigning potential functions to unknown genes. Micro B3 will develop clear IP agreements for the protection and sustainable use of pre-competitive microbial genetic resources and their exploitation in high potential commercial applications. To underline the translational character of Micro B3, outreach and training activities for diverse stakeholders are planned as well as an Ocean Sampling Day to transparently make project results accessible and gain valuable user feedback.
Die nachhaltige Produktion wichtiger Chemikalien, Lebensmittel- und Pharmazeutikakomponenten ist von hoher Bedeutung für die Gesellschaft und die Umwelt. Biotechnologische Produktionssysteme stellen eine sinnvolle Alternative zu den bisherigen, meist chemischen, Verfahren da. Die biotechnologische Produktionssysteme basieren jedoch bisher meist auf der Verwertung von Zuckern. Zucker, die aus Pflanzen gewonnen werden, benötigen kultivierbares Land, das mehr und mehr zur Gewinnung von Nahrungsmitteln benötigt wird. Methanol - mit einer weltweiten Produktionskapazität von mehr als 46 Millionen Tonnen pro Jahr - gilt als attraktiver alternativer Rohstoff für die biotechnologische Produktion von Spezial-, Fein- und Basischemikalien oder Kraftstoffen. Dies gilt insbesondere für den EU-Markt, wo die industrielle Biotechnologie noch durch strikte Preis- und Nutzungsregularien sowie Importlimitierungen von Agrargütern wie Mais oder Zucker behindert ist. Die Methanolversorgung kann sowohl auf fossilen, als auch auf erneuerbaren Ressourcen basieren, was es als flexiblen und nachhaltigen Rohstoff auszeichnet. In dem Projekt PROMYSE werden zum ersten Mal synthetisch-biologische Prinzipien für die Entwicklung von Zellfabriken angewendet um Methanol als generellen Rohstoff für die Produktion von Spezial- und Feinchemikalien verfügbar zu machen. Produktseitig liegt der Hauptfokus auf der Substanzklasse der Terpenoide.
The Catch-C project assesses the farm-compatibility of Best Management Practices (BMPs) that aim to promote productivity, climate change mitigation, and soil quality. These are the three overall goals of sustainable soil management. Catch-C will first (WP2) set up a typology of the main farm types and agro-ecological zones across Europe. This frame, coupled to a pan-European database of socio-economic and biophysical data, will be used for spatially organising the information collected on current management; and for up-scaling the impacts expected from changes in management. Biophysical impacts of management practices will be assessed (WP3) primarily from a large set of current field experiments, executed by the participants. BMPs will be formulated, along with their trade-offs and synergies between productivity, climate change mitigation, and soil quality. Farmers, however, often do not adopt BMPs. Identifying the barriers against adoption, and formulating ways to remove these, are core activities of the project (WP4). Catch-C will survey farmer views on BMPs in all participant countries, assess costs and benefits of implementation, identify technical and ecological bottlenecks preventing adoption, develop a decision support tool, and prioritize innovation requirements to address bottlenecks. Policy measures can promote adoption in various ways, such as voluntary measures, regulation, and economic incentives. In interaction with policy makers, Catch-C will develop (WP5) guidelines for policies that will support the adoption of BMPs; and that are consistent with regional agro-ecological and farming contexts. Dissemination (WP6) includes scientific publication; discussing project results with farmers and policy makers; making information about BMPs and their adoption available to a wider audience; and stimulating awareness about the pros and cons of BMPs for different farm types and environments in participant countries.
The provision of public goods (including landscape services) in rural areas is recognized as one of the key topics for the future of agriculture and rural policy. Agriculture plays a major role in landscape management through its complex interlinkages with landscape features. In turn, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) remains an important driver of landscape management due to its importance as a determinant of farming activities in the EU. The main objective of the CLAIM project is to provide the knowledge base to support an effective CAP policy design in the direction of improved landscape management, particularly providing insights into the ability of landscape to contribute to the production of added value for society in rural areas. CLAIM is focused in particular on understanding and enhancing the contribution of landscapes management to socio-economic development and agricultural competitiveness in rural areas. This will be based on a pragmatic consideration of landscape services and their analysis through a mixed-method approach, taking into account the wider EU policy strategies (in particular related to innovation and the bioeconomy). The main expected result of the CLAIM project is an evidence-based policy support framework on the different and possible contributions of agriculture and the CAP to landscape management. The framework will be mainly developed and validated through a set of 9 case studies, a strong involvement of stakeholders at different territorial levels and a wide coverage of the perspectives of EU and candidate countries. The framework will finally take the practical form of a web-based manual to be implemented in accordance to stakeholders needs and indications.
Ziel des gesamten Projektes besteht zum einen in der Entwicklung neuer Anbau-, Futter- und Weide-Produktionssysteme mit Leguminosen, die die Umweltauswirkungen der europ. Agrar-Systeme reduzieren und zum anderen in der Durchführung sozio-ökonom. Analysen und Umweltbewertungen. Dazu wird die Forschung einen wissenschaftl. fundierten Rahmen, Strategien, Methoden und Instrumente zur Bewertung der ökologischen und ökonomischen Auswirkungen neuer leguminosenbasierten Anbausysteme aufstellen. Die spez. Ziele des Projekts sind: 1. Das Verwalten von 18 Fallstudien in Europa basierend auf etablierte Feldversuche, welche über neue Anbausystem-Designs informieren und diese validieren und die Schaffung einer Anlaufstelle für die lokale Entwicklung der Rolle von Leguminosen in neuen Anbausysteme (WP1). 2 Die Entwicklung neuer Anbausysteme für Europas pedo-klimatische Zonen durch Nutzung der Modellierung unter der Inanspruchnahme der Daten der Fallstudien, die durch das Projekt vernetzt sind (WP 1, 2, 4, und 6). 3 Die Quantifizierung der Ressourcennutzung unter Nutzung von biophysikalischen und ökonomischen Modellen (z.B. fossile Energieträger), zusammen mit den sozio-ökonomischen und ökol. Auswirkungen von kontrastierenden Anbau- und Landwirtschaftssystem-Szenarien in einem Skalenbereich (von lokal zu global) (WP 4, 6). 4 Die Identifizierung der großflächigen Umweltauswirkungen der Leguminosennutzung innerhalb der Anbausysteme (z.B. Kohlenstoff- und Stickstoff-Kreislauf, Treibhausgasemissionen, Bodenqualität, Biodiversität, Auswirkungen auf Schädlinge und Krankheiten), einschließl. der systematischen Messungen der Lachgasemissionen (WP3). 5 Die Inanspruchnahme von Daten aus bestehenden und neuen Feldexperimenten und aus Stakeholder-Interaktionen, um das Elitesaatgut einer breiten Palette von Leguminosenarten und ihrer symbiotischen Organismen im Hinblick auf ihre Eignung in den neuen Anbausystemen zu beurteilen (WP2). 6 Die Bereitstellung von bewerteten Szenarien um die Entwicklung von Lieferketten, einschließlich der Tierfütterungssysteme (für Wiederkäuer, Monogastrier, Geflügel und Fisch), zu unterstützen, basierend auf diese Anbausysteme in Verbindung mit den fortlaufenden Forschungsarbeiten im Konsortium, dem Input unserer lokalen und internationalen Stakeholder-Foren und der umfangreichen Literatur (WP1, 2, 4, 5, 6). 7 Die Bereitstellung einer ausführlichen und vollständigen Bewertung des Potenzials von Leguminosen im Non-Food-Sektor und die Auswirkung dieses Potenzials für die Gestaltung der Anbausysteme (WP5). 8 Das Erleichtern des Zugangs zur umfassenderen Wissensbasis über Leguminosen und die Verbreitung von Informationen über neue agronomische, ökologische und soziale Auswirkungen von Leguminosen in Anbausysteme (WP1, 2, 5). 9 Die Entwicklung und Verbesserung von Leguminosen-Wissensressourcen durch die Sammlung und Verknüpfung von Daten und Wissen, die zur Einrichtung eines 'European Legume Crop Biological Resources Centre' führen (WP2, 5).
Project description: The project will analyse the costs, and thus the effectiveness of different organic standard setting procedures and certification systems as a basis for optimising of current EU certification system (Reg. EEC 2092/91). The central task is to quantify, for selected products, all relevant expenditure and transaction costs for certification along the entire supply chain for all actors involved: farm, processing, wholesaling, retail and import level as well as the administration level. Regarding the consumer side, it will be analysed how consumers perceive the various standards, logos and trademarks in the different regions of Europe. The project will make recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of organic certification for the EU Commission, national competent authorities and private actors in organic food and farming. Main task of our department is the analysis of consumer recognition of different labels and their willingness to pay for different labels and underlying standards. Expected outcome: Efficient certification systems for organic farming with lower costs that will increase the competitiveness of the European organic farming sector.
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