Targeting ambitious changes in agricultural practices that would preserve restore and enhance soil carbon and soil health requires an increased coordination of international research cooperation. The specific challenge lies in the identification, implementation and verification of agricultural soil management practices which create a positive soil/ecosystem carbon budget at the farm and landscape levels, sequester carbon, improve soil structure and soil quality and provide climate change adaptation while contributing to sustainable development. In this context, the CSA CIRCASA has an overarching goal to develop synergies on research in this field at European Union and global level, targeting four realistic and highly complementary objectives: O1. Strengthen the international research community on agricultural soil carbon sequestration; O2. Provide an improved understanding of agricultural soil carbon sequestration and its potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation and for demands of increased food production; O3. Synthesizing stakeholder’s views and knowledge needs on agricultural soil carbon sequestration and climate change O4. Favor a more structured approach, by preparing an International Research Consortium (IRC) These four objectives will produce measurable outputs during the time frame of the project and create significant outcomes for the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and of the Paris agreement (COP21, 4 per 1000 voluntary initiative) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). CIRCASA will benefit from the participation of three major initiatives: the Global Research Alliance on agricultural greenhouse gases (GRA), the Joint Programming Initiative on Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCE JPI) and the 4 per 1000 - Soils for Food Security and Climate - initiative, and from the contribution of the CCCAFS and the WLE programs of the CGIAR.

The Legume Generation consortium will invest in innovation that boosts the breeding of legumes in Europe by combining the entrepreneurial focus of breeders with the broad inventiveness of the supporting research base. Six species-oriented breeder-led innovation communities will link practical breeding with the research-base in a transdisciplinary framework. They lead the innovation work and each is focused on the breeding of a single species or species type: soya bean (Glycine max); lupins (Lupinus spp); pea (Pisum sativum); lentil (Lens culinaris); phaseolus bean (Phaseolus spp. e.g., ‘common’ bean); and white and red clover (Trifolium repens and T. pratense). These are supported by the cross-project collection of intelligence on ideotype concepts, beneficial traits, a catalogue of legume species and cultivars, and breeding methods assembled in the Legume Generation Knowledge Centre; the production and validation of novel resources (genotypes, methods, and tools); screening, demonstration and testing of germplasm and new cultivars in different regions; training to support breeding gains in our innovation communities; governance and financial models, and business plans for inclusive plant breeding. All this will be supported by consortium internal and external dissemination and communications, including the extension of the European Legume Hub as a platform for sharing of knowledge. We currently run 43 breeding and pre-breeding programmes. We will give these a decisive boost through access to resources that accelerates the production of novel germplasm, innovating up to the point where newly bred germplasm and cultivars are proven on farm. Breeders will use the results to support expansion of legume production. Our innovation communities will be open to all relevant actors and provide a direct route for the dissemination of results to other users and interested stakeholders. Their sustainability beyond the life of the project will be supported by business plans.

In order to reduce GHG-emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels and incresease carbon sequestration and storage a strong systemic approach is required. Different single solutions exist for different production systems, but if one wants to break the glass ceiling new organisational, technical and financial solutions are requested. These solution have to be supported by voluntarist policies. ClieNFarms is based on 20 demonstration case-studies (I3S) where systemic innovative solutions will be tested and evaluated using up-to-date modeling approaches and multicriteria assessment tools. These case-studies will pave the diversity of the production systems (crops, cattle, dairy, special crop productions, etc) and the diversity of geographical situations (from East to West and North to South of Europe, plus one in New-Zealand). The solutions will be co-designed with farmers and the surrounding ecosystem (R&D, finance, supply chain, etc) through creative arena in a living-lab like structure. Involving finance and supply chain will help creating an enabling environment for farmers transition to climate-neutral farms. I3S structure aims to allow for 1 demonstration farm to reach 10 lead commercial farms and then 100 outreach farms. With the help of the supply a much larger number of farmers will be reached. All the solutions will be recorded in the ClieNFarms data hub that will be an open catalog for every one interested in climate mitigation in the agricultural sector. Different guidelines and tools will be part of the outputs of the projects. A large dissemination of the results project will be made through professional newspapers, scientific articles, social networks, etc. ClieNFarms will also develop bricks for capacity building allowing to show in a short sequence pros and cons of the different solutions and tools. ClieNFarms will create a dialog with other on-going project and with the EC. ClieNFarms gather 33 partners and will last 4 years.

Models4Pastures will test, improve, and then use, simulation models to provide robust assessments of the impact of N2O mitigation options in grassland systems across a large geographic and climatic range. Our models and assessments will take into account the effects of the mitigation option, and its follow-on consequences (e.g. changes in grazing intensity) for other gases to understand the net ecosystem effect, food production and variability of production, and the effects on the ability of the soil to sustain production. This work will be done in the company of current and proposed FACCE-JPI projects and other international activities, We will use model inter-comparisons and development to provide improved tools for climate change research. In our case we will concentrate on exploring N2O mitigation options for grassland systems and the flow-on impacts of those mitigations on the ability of the soil to sustain production and on the needs for changed inputs or management of the grasslands. The inclusion of New Zealand and European teams provides a wide range of datasets, including a new dataset collected at high temporal resolution and covering different climatic conditions and management practices, and a range of models that have different formulation (assumptions and parameters) and approaches. This is the ideal situation to explore the most effective model features and develop models that are robust across a range of situations that is as wide as possible. The suite of diverse models also forms an ideal ensemble with which to approach the study of mitigation options. We expect that this combined approach (challenging/improving existing models and ensemble modelling) will result in modelling tools that can be used with confidence by scientists and mitigation assessments that policymakers can be assured are robust. Because many of the scientists in our project are also involved in other modelling inter-comparison initiatives we expect our findings will be rapidly and effectively disseminated to end users who will initially be other scientists wishing to explore potential mitigation options and their consequences.