"<< Background >>For the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, the European Commission is calling for the modernisation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The new CAP has a key role to play in supporting the European agricultural sector, managing the transition to sustainable food production systems and strengthening European farmers' efforts to contribute to the EU's climate objectives and environmental protection goals set in the European Green Deal, and related strategies such as the Farm to Fork, Biodiversity Strategy and the Organic Action Plan.In their daily lives, farmers encounter the CAP primarily through subsidies and grants, which often have a decisive influence on their management directions. In many cases, however, they are not sufficiently aware of the rules and conditions for implementing certain measures. As the efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural production can be enhanced in line with higher environmental and agro-ecological standards, for farmers to be able to apply these solutions in a professional, effective, successful and sustainable way, it is essential that they understand how they work, the production (and not only support) benefits they can expect from their application, and that they are genuinely convinced to introduce and maintain these methods in production practice. Only then can meaningful progress be achieved, whether it is more efficient use of pesticides, higher yields or less environmental impact. The key to a change in farmers' attitudes is the right transfer of practical knowledge, which requires advisory support, demonstration farms events and forums that bring together actors to transfer knowledge.Therefore, our main aim is to captivate farmers across the EU by building their knowledge, skills and attitudes on climate change and sustainable development in the context of available funding opportunities and linked good eco-practices, to increase better understanding, responsibility and implementation efficiency. Ensuring a wide range of knowledge transfer programmes - technical and administrative support services, practice-oriented training, demonstration farm events - is one of the most critical conditions for the successful implementation and operation of the new CAP, in order to meet the changing management requirements and efficiently absorb the available funds.Assessing the farm from an environmental perspective is an essential first step in the transition process. As environmental and sustainability considerations have become more prominent in agricultural policy over the past few decades. However, existing procedures and tools assess the farm at a very high level of abstraction and in many sustainability dimensions, making it difficult for stakeholders to implement the assessment and use the results in practice. In addition, the current tools do not, in most cases, pay sufficient attention to the farmer's skills and attitudes, which can have a decisive influence on the adoption of different environmentally friendly farming methods. Furthermore, there are numerous information resources available which list the available support (subsidy, grant) opportunities and regulations for agricultural producers and rural entrepreneurs, while the availability of information resources on organic farming, climate smart techniques, precision agriculture methods, and other sustainable practices, the reliable and professionally validated data is scarcer, but exists (such as the Organic Farm Knowledge Platform by FiBL). What is especially missing is a common entry point which can display and support decision making from both angles: the available funding mechanisms connected with the required farming methods. In the implementation of green farming techniques, applied research connected with extensionists play a significant role, but they often do not receive an integrated methodological support to guide farmers through the relevant policy changes. Our project aims to fill these gaps.<< Objectives >>From 2022 it is needed to promote the exchange of best practices at EU and national level, enabling farmers and extensionists to be accurately prepared for the changes in agricultural policy and the considerations behind these changes. The CAPTIVATE project provides an innovative, complex and targeted method for agricultural producers and extension service providers to improve their knowledge in the crucially important area of sustainable farming, which is at the centre of the new CAP and it also attracts considerable social attention from the side of the customers. The project aims to develop a farmer-centred assessment and training system to better connect the new CAP requirements with proven and innovative good eco-management practices, in favour of improved implementation of the various measures, increased uptake of support, improved efficiency in production and protection of the natural environment.To promote the widest possible understanding of environmentally friendly farming practices, and to support the successful implementation of the European Green Deal. To make the best use of existing knowledge bases and educational materials, and to promote the uptake of current research results, innovative methods and good practices that are of high relevance to climate protection and sustainability.Developing and testing a methodology to provide comprehensive support to advisors and farmers in implementing environmentally friendly farming solutions effectively and in line with agricultural policy.All the partners involved in the CAPTIVATE project have been working for many years to promote sustainable agriculture, environment friendly methods, organic production and to educate extension service providers and farmers in different aspects of green farming, which means that the main objective of the project is helping them reaching the goals they strive to achieve every day<< Implementation >>The CAPTIVATE project provides an innovative, complex and targeted method for agricultural producers and extension service providers to improve their knowledge in sustainability domain through the following activities: We will systematically process the relevant legislation and extract the information which is practically meaningful for their realization at the farm level. This will be accompanied with the overview, selection and mapping of best eco-practices, which are the most suitable to meet the certain CAP regulations. The result will be represented in a user-friendly online knowledge base, and serve as the foundation of learning content for green skills.The project aims for the development of an Eco-Farm Assessment Tool, evaluating the needs, skills and attitudes of farmers, as well as the characteristics and ecological potential of their farms allow to create a context-dependent, individualized planning path which builds on the prior knowledge and context of the farmers. The tool will support the transfer of knowledge, enabling partners and participants to gain deeper insight into each farmer’s profile, technical and soft skill, attitude, motivation and other aspects, and also to monitor progress.In order to present a one-stop-shop access to all materials and services created and curated by the CAPTIVATE project, and to support the exploitation of those results, a Digital Platform will be developed. The platform will have a practical purpose as today, especially after the last one and half year living under the pandemic, digital communication and virtual information management methods became a regular and familiar environment for the members of the extension network, and also more widely used by the primary production sector (farmers, foresters, rural entrepreneurs). On the other hand, by channelling all project results through our digital platform, we will have the opportunity to further increase its adoption and contribute strongly to the horizontal priority of the project as well (addressing digital transformation through development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity).The CAPTIVATE project organises methodological training and develops modular, sample teaching materials on high importance areas in green farming, that supports the exploitation of the knowledge base and the assessment tool on the digital platform as a package. A two-staged pilot learning programme will be organised around the implementation of the results. The main innovative element of this project result is to amalgamate the new results and developments to a complete package, with the development and testing of a sound methodology and sample materials. The participants of the training will be members of the extension network (advisors, specialists) primarily, who will transfer the knowledge received to their farmer partners.All the developed services and experiences of the project will be summarized and published in two concise handbooks, covering relevant methodological guidelines, first one for ""early adopters"", so that the results can be readily exploited right at the introductory phase of the new CAP, and the second one by concluding all project experiences. We are connecting with our two issues to the two main phases of knowledge transfer. The Guides will provide detailed information on the modules and content of the CAPTIVATE digital knowledge management platform, as well as contextual information and a step-by-step guide on how to use them together. The activities will be concluded by an online conference at the EU level for final dissemination and policy discussion. Our policy recommendation will focus on the extent to which the new measures, programmes and subsidies that take environmental aspects into account are working, and how they can be made more effective, understandable and applicable.<< Results >>The main results of the project based on the activities of the partners are a) the CAP Eco-Practice Knowledge Base, which extracts the rules and requirements meaningful for farmers, and linking them with the detailed description of relevant good practice methods, b) an Eco-Farm Assessment Tool will provide a detailed assessment of the characteristics, capabilities and potential of the farm in relation to the new CAP regulations and requirements, and will also pay particular attention to the farmer as the decision-maker skills and attitude towards the available measures, c) the CAPTIVATE Digital Platform, to present a one-stop-shop access to all the other innovative results of the project, and support the exploitation of those results using a multilingual interface in English and in the project languages, d) methodological and professional training, accompanied with modular learning materials on high importance areas in green farming for members of the extension network (advisors, specialists), e) methodology guides will provide detailed information on the modules and content of the CAPTIVATE digital platform, as well as contextual information and a step-by-step guide on how to use them together.The expected outcomes of the project on the participants can be identified in several layers. We can categorize the impacts by the different levels and areas where they occur, which usually also determines the target group concerned. Learners will improve their knowledge of the new CAP and related green farming measures and extend their methodological arsenal, thus will be able to provide a higher quality service. In relation to the implementation of the new knowledge and services, learners will spread the methodology in their professional network and this will result in better understanding of the new CAP policy and its relation to sustainability among farmers in the learners’ network and smoother transition to the new CAP. The partner organisations in the project gain a better understanding of sustainability oriented agricultural policy implementation and mechanism of action/success factors through international comparison and knowledge exchange. The project will enhance the utilisation and efficiency of existing knowledge services managed by the partners. Project partners will also upgrade their organisational knowledge about farmers' mindsets, motivations and their preferred and least favoured/understood practices, which leads to better service provision through customer segmentation. The staff of the partner organisations will have a better comprehension of applied and context-based learning activities.The main desired impacts linked to the overall goals, results and outcomes of the project are mainly to be identified in the sustainable farming - agricultural policy domain. The extension service providers will upgrade their methodological knowledge of extension service providers and gain access to a curated list of good eco-farm practices as the complex service tool and the method becomes acclaimed and widely used. Farming communities accurately understand the links between sustainability, agricultural policy and farming practices and make more responsible and conscious decisions about the selection of the appropriate schemes, also taking voluntary actions for ecological measures apart from purely financial aspects. This will improve the take up of subsidies and policy measures under the new CAP, leading to better implementation of projects, management of undertakings, which will have a positive effect on the environment by more farmers carrying out measures properly, validated by the assessment tool. The results of the project will provide feedback from the field, alignment of requirements, commitments with the reality of farming practices, fostering the bridges between agricultural policy, expert knowledge and good practice in all directions, and giving insights on the practical applicability regulations for policy makers."

In line with the Zero Pollution action plan, the “Farm to Fork” strategy and the new Fertilising Product Regulation, NOVAFERT will demonstrate the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility and safe use of a wide portfolio of at least 25 alternative fertilising products, containing recovered nutrients from all 6 different waste streams mentioned in the call, with the goal of facilitating the replacement of synthetic and mineral fertilisers. NOVAFERT gathers 9 multidisciplinary actors to demonstrate the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility and safe use of alternative fertilising products. The environmental aspect will be covered by developing guidelines and a consensual method for environmental assessment of alternative fertilising products. The economic aspect will be covered by co-creating novel, circular and green business models. As such, NOVAFERT will reduce environmental impacts and external nutrient dependence in agriculture in 6 representative countries from Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern and Central Europe. NOVAFERT will map existing alternative fertilising products across Europe and develop an Atlas of the nutrient-oriented living labs, and also will support the development of sustainable local value chains. By regionally contextualizing and interlinking all main recovering technologies and products, and technically connecting all value chains and key relevant stakeholders in 7 regional working groups and 7-10 lighthouse demo’s, NOVAFERT will foster the sustainable use and management of alternative fertilizing products in Europe. Moreover, NOVAFERT will develop a portfolio of support policies and legislative instruments suitable for local deployment in the EU regions through 7 specific action plans and 4 policy briefs. Thereby NOVAFERT will bring together the necessary information for efficient and safe utilizing of alternative fertilising products to help decision-making on valorisation employed in nutrient recovery.

NUTRI2CYCLE will use an integrated approach to enable the transition from the current (suboptimal) nutrient household in European agriculture to the next-generation of agronomic practices, characterized by an improved upcycling of nutrients and organic carbon. The project is deeply rooted in pevious national and European projects, in which the consortium members were actively involved. The underlying principle is that Nutrient Use Efficency can be significantly improved by integrating on-farm techniques and systems that allow better reconnection between 1) animal husbandry provided flows and 2) plant production requirements. At the same time this reconnection itself will serve a better C-return to soil and GHG-reduction by avoided emissions optionally combined with energy production for self-consumption on-farm. NUTRI2CYCLE aims to (i) benchmark mass flows of nutrients, organic carbon and GHG-footprint, (ii) provide an assessment frame (toolbox) for evaluating potential impact of proposed innovations, (iii) actively support concepts, techniques and scenarios put forward in EIP-Operational Groups, (iv) optimize these (+ in-consortium developed) scenarios using the toolbox, (v) showcase the most promising developments via prototypes and demos. Finally, using the experience gained at a local/regional scale, NUTRI2CYCLE will elaborate strategic scenarios to identify the effect of these innovations at European scale. NUTRI2CYCLE brings together the extensive expertise of leading experts in the field of nutrient cycling. This collaboration originates from the EIP-Focus Group on Nutrient Recycling, closely interacting with the EIP Operational Groups in the individual EU member states. Better nutrient stewardship engaging all actors across the value chain as envisaged in NUTRI2CYCLE will increase the C, N and P recycling rate significantly and will improve the overall sustainability and innovation capacity of European agricultural systems.

Total farm livestock population in Europe excrete around 1400 Mt of manure annually. More than 90% of manure produced is returned to agricultural fields. However, this is not being done in the most efficient and least leaky way. FERTIMANURE will develop, integrate, test and validate innovative Nutrient Management Strategies to efficiently recover mineral nutrients and other products with agronomic value from manure, to finally obtain reliable and safe fertilisers that can compete in the EU fertilizers market. FERTIMANURE focuses on “How to improve the agronomic use of recycled nutrients from livestock manure” to reconnect nutrient flows between plant and livestock production. Nutrient recycling relies not only in the technologies for producing bio-based fertilisers, but also in a better understanding and managing nutrients at the farm. The ambition of FERTIMANURE is to cover both technological approach for nutrient recovery and nutrient management. To this end, the technological approach will be covered by the implementation of 5 innovative & integrated nutrient recovery on-farm experimental pilots in the most relevant European countries in terms of livestock production (Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands), whereas the nutrient management will be addressed through 3 different strategies adapted to mixed and specialised farming systems: (Strategy #1) On-farm production and use of Bio-Based Fertilisers (BBF), (Strategy #2) On-farm BBF production and Centralised Tailor-Made Fertilisers (TMF) production and (Strategy #3) On-farm TMF production and use. A total of 31 marketable end-products (11 BBF & 20 TMF) will be obtained. The agronomic & environmental performance and their potential to replace conventional fertilisers will be assessed. Ultimately, FERTIMANURE seeks to provide an innovative circular economy model to favour rural development in agricultural sector by creating real synergies and links within farmers and other industrial activities.

SEA2LAND aims to provide solutions to help overcome challenges related to food production, climate change and waste reuse. The SEA2LAND project will meet this challenge by improving and adapting technologies for nutrient recovery to produce biobased fertilizers (BBFs) from fish processing and aquaculture byproducts. It will promote the production of large-scale fertilizers in the EU from own raw materials, based on the circular economy model, transforming by-products into nutrients for crops. SEA2LAND will contribute to the independence and security in the supply of nutrients to European agriculture, reducing the nutrient imbalance in Europe. The basis of the project is the regional production of BBFs developing demonstration pilots that can be replicated throughout Europe, boosting local growth. The project proposes the implementation of 9 technologies in 7 cases in 6 areas representative of the fisheries sector (North, Baltic, Atlantic, Cantabric, Mediterranean, Adriatic Sea). The proposed technologies range from well-known processes (bokashi, composting, etc.) that can be a solution in some areas due to its low cost and simplicity to others more sophisticated that go from thermo-mechanical fractionation to enzymatic hydrolysis. The technologies will be applied to different by-products (typical in each implementation area), and they will produce several BBFs either for local crops and conditions, and others for exporting (with high value and effectiveness to assure a low impact). BBFs will be characterized to ensure compliance with EU regulations, including those related to organic farming. Besides, the effects on soil biodiversity, environmental sustainability and the impact on social parameters and local economy will be studied and business plans will be defined. Finally BBFs from by-products will serve to partially replace imported nutrients for agriculture in Europe, contributing to reduce the negative environmental effects of the misuse of by-products.