Project: Strip-cropping and recycling of waste for biodiverse and resoURce-Efficient intensive VEGetable production
| Acronym | SUREVEG (Reference Number: 1954) |
| Duration | 01/03/2018 - 01/03/2021 |
| Project Topic | The demand for organic vegetables is rising rapidly but cannot be met by current agronomic methods. The lack of attention for biodiversity and soil fertility of current practices damages the credibility of organic products. There is a clear need for new agronomic methods. We propose to develop and implement new diversified, intensive organic cropping systems using strip-cropping and fertility strategies combined from plant-based soil-improvers and fertilizers for improved resilience, system sustainability, local nutrient recycling and soil carbon storage. This will be achieved by: 1) Designing and testing strip-cropping systems in vegetable producing countries at different geographical locations in Europe. 2) Developing and testing soil-improvers and fertilizers based on pre-treated organic plant residues. 3) Developing and testing smart technologies for management of strip-cropping systems. The intensive and diverse production systems will be adjusted to local needs and barriers by early and continuous involvement of stakeholders. The tangible outputs are 1) a database of crop traits; and 2) specific advices for farmers’ and advisors’ implementation of strip-cropping systems and fertility strategies including species choice, system designs, soil-improvers’ and fertilizers’ recipies and management options in the form of field visits, national and transnational meetings, stakeholder-oriented and scientific publications and YouTube videos. The impact will be to significantly decrease the dependency on biopesticides and non-organic fertilizers, enhancing the positive environmental impacts on water and soil quality and landscape biodiversity, while boosting credibility and productivity (15%) of organic vegetables. Positive impact will derive from the reintegration of nutrients into the soil by valoring organic plant residues from “waste” to “resource” in the light of EU policy on circular economy, which asks for 30% of P supply not from chemical fertilizers. |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | CORE Organic Cofund |
| Call | CORE Organic Call 2016 |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aarhus University | Coordinator | Denmark |
| 2 | Louis Bolk Institute | Partner | Netherlands |
| 3 | Natural Resources Institute | Partner | Finland |
| 4 | Centro Agricoltura e Ambiente | Partner | Italy |
| 5 | School of Agricultural Engineering | Partner | Spain |
| 6 | Institute of Horticulture | Partner | Latvia |
| 7 | Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research | Partner | Belgium |
| 8 | Wageningen University | Partner | Netherlands |
| 9 | inagro | Partner | Belgium |
| 10 | Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences | Partner | Finland |
| 11 | Centre for Automation and Robotics | Partner | Spain |