Currently, the global production of crops requires excessive amounts of water, pesticides, chemicals and energy. New ways of sustainable crop production have to be explored in order to increase productivity and to improve the quality of crops whilst simultaneously reducing the use of chemicals.
The first call of SusCrop focused on the enhancement of predictive breeding technologies and the development of new genotypes leading to new phenotypes and crop varieties for improving plant health, protection, production and resilience; the development and exploitation of novel integrated pest and crop management methods and practices; the improvement of resource-use efficiency of crops and cropping systems; and the systemic research on agricultural crops as part of an ecosystem including interactions between plants and other organisms (“the plant as a meta-organism”).
This call belongs to the FACCE-JPI 2010-2020 - Core theme 4 - Adaptation to climate change.