Innovative biotechnologies to restore soil health and improve agricultural competitiveness and resilience

Expected Outcome

Activities under this topic will advance the objectives and targets of the Mission Soil and should contribute to achieving the targets of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the Zero Pollution Action Plan, the proposal for a Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive, the Life Science Strategy, the Communication on Boosting Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing in the EU, while also contributing to the objectives on improving soil management and environmental performance of the Vision for Agriculture and Food.

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following expected outcomes:

• to advance, validate and bring up to market readiness level innovative, scalable, sustainable and cost-effective biotechnologies, particularly those leveraging soil microbiome, which enhance crop quality and productivity, while remediate soil pollution and improve soil health;
• validated, market ready biotechnological solutions for soil remediation and soil health improvement are made available to relevant stakeholders, to enable reduced dependency on synthetic chemicals, increased crop resilience and agricultural productivity.

Scope

Europe faces increasing challenges due to soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, and the expanding impacts of climate change. Addressing these issues is essential to ensure food security and sustainable land use. The integration of biotechnology can play a transformative role in this regard in the varied environmental conditions and land-use types found across Europe. In addition biotechnology solutions that improve soil health (such as novel bio-based fertilizers or microbial inoculants) can significantly enhance crop productivity by restoring essential nutrients and microbial balance in the soil. Finally, biotechnology solutions can provide innovative methods to decontaminate and rehabilitate degraded soils and lands, thus boosting the ecological and economic value of underutilized areas.

Proposals should:

• develop, identify, upscale, pilot and validate biotechnology solutions, particularly leveraging the soil microbiome (such as novel bio-based fertilizers or microbial inoculants but not only) which remediate, restore and improve soil health across diverse pedoclimatic and cropping conditions;
• address the following issues: bioremediation of contaminated soils (i.e. by heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, PFAS); increasing soil organic carbon stocks, improving soil structure to enhance soil biodiversity, water retention and nutrient availability; overall, this should lead to enhanced crop quality and productivity, enabled higher and more sustainable biomass production;
• ensure that developed solutions are scalable, sustainable, cost-effective and integrate circular economy principles to boost resource efficiency and support sustainable soil management practices;
• assess the economic, environmental and social impact of developed biotechnological solutions; analyse their socio-economic feasibility (including cost-benefit, adoption barriers, and market potential) and validate their scalability and market readiness through stakeholder collaboration (e.g. SMEs, farmers, industry); address challenges related to environmental stability and sustainability of the developed solutions and the adaptability to varying environmental conditions;
• design integrated market-readiness pathways for the developed biotechnology solutions, to accelerate their safe, effective, and socially accepted deployment. The pathways should ensure regulatory compliance including risk assessment considerations, stakeholder engagement strategies, market acceptance analysis and policy foresight.

Proposals must implement the 'multi-actor approach' and ensure adequate involvement of all relevant actors of the value chain, such as academia, research-technology organizations, small-medium enterprises (including start-ups), investors, product developers, intellectual property and legal advisors, manufacturing and distribution partners, as well as end-users, like farmers and practitioners.

Proposals should include a dedicated task, appropriate resources and a plan on how they will collaborate with other project funded under this topic and other relevant topics. They should participate in joint activities, workshops, focus groups or social labs, as well as organise common communication and dissemination activities and show potential for upscaling and cross-fertilisation. Applicants should plan the necessary budget to cover these activities.

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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5-6 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.