ECONUTRI is a consortium of scientific experts and researchers from different disciplines, private companies, farmers’ associations, and stakeholders. ECONUTRI is?also?partnering with six Chinese Institutions, four from public research?centres?and two from industry, to complement activities and?to?strengthen the scientific collaboration between Europe and China. The project will scientifically support the EU’s Green Deal in its target to reduce fertiliser use by least 20% by 2030, reducing?nutrient losses (by 50%)?and?associated?negative environmental impacts. More specifically, ECONUTRI will address water pollution caused by nitrate and phosphorous leaching and run-off from cultivated soils, manure/slurry,?and plant residues, as well as greenhouse gas?emissions from cultivated soils, barns, and organic biomass during storage, composting, and land applications. ECONUTRI will optimise, validate, and demonstrate 24 innovative technologies that currently have a?technology readiness level (TRL)?of 4-6 (up to large research scale), and will increase their TRL to 7-8?(technology commissioning).?These technologies are integrated parts of a holistic concept of?“innovation stacking”, and is?based on?principles which aim to optimise?recycling of nutrients and organic material,?as facilitated by?novel machinery and fertilisers, novel decision support systems (DSS), and novel nutrient management plans incorporating nature-based solutions to reduce nutrient losses and to increase nutrient use efficiency. The expected results include hyperspectral analysis algorithms, advanced on-line DSS platforms to develop smart nutrient management plans for organic and conventional crops, protocols for circular cropping systems in open field and greenhouses, advanced emission monitoring feedback systems, novel manure spreaders, variable rate technologies for precision fertilisation, smart fertilisers, and bio stimulants increasing N use efficiency. ECONUTRI will establish eight demonstration sites and deploy a comprehensive range of dissemination, communication, and exploitation activities to maximise the impact of the expected results and technologies.?

Antibiotics are used extensively to fight bacterial infections and have saved millions of lives. However, the bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics and some antibiotics have stopped working. We refer to this as antimicrobial resistance - AMR. We don't just use antibiotics for people; similar amounts are given to farm animals. More than 900 million farm animals are reared every year in the UK and antibiotic treatments are vital for their welfare, for farms as businesses, and for us to enjoy affordable food. However, farms may be contributing to the development of AMR. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of how farm practice, especially the way in which manure is handled, could lead to AMR in animal and human pathogens. This understanding will help farmers and vets find new ways to reduce AMR, without harming their animals or their businesses. For research purposes, Nottingham University maintains a typical high performance dairy farm - its 200 cows produce a lot of milk and a lot of manure. The waste is stored in a 3 million litre slurry tank, any excess goes into a 7 million litre lagoon. This slurry is applied to fields as organic fertilizer. Cow manure contains many harmless bacteria but some, e.g. E. coli O157, can cause severe infection in people. When cows get sick they are treated with antibiotics. Udder infections are treated by injection of antibiotics into the udder. Since this milk contains antibiotics, it cannot be sold but is discarded into the slurry. Foot infections are treated with an antibacterial footbath, which is also emptied into the slurry tank. As a result, slurry tanks contain a mixture of bacteria, antibiotics and other antimicrobials that are stored for many months. The bacteria that survive in the presence of antibiotics are more likely to have antibiotic resistance. This resistance is encoded in their genes so passed to the next generation. Worse still, the genes can be passed on to other bacteria in the slurry. Before we wrote this proposal, we investigated our own farm's slurry tank to see if this might be happening. We tested 160 E. coli strains from the slurry; most carried antibiotic resistance. We also found antibiotics in the tank - including some that bacteria were resistant to. Our mathematical modellers showed that reducing spread of resistance genes in the tank might be more effective in preventing resistance than cutting the use of antibiotics. Conversations with the farm vets revealed that they knew about AMR and had changed some of their antibiotic prescriptions. But these analyses leave us with more questions than answers. In this project, we want to find out if current farming methods are contributing to the development of harmful antibiotic-resistant bacteria in slurry, bacteria that may then be encountered by humans and animals. To do this, we need to integrate scientific and cultural approaches: - What bacteria are in the slurry? How many are harmful? What resistance genes do they carry? How do these genes spread? - How long do antibiotics remain in the tank? Do they degrade? - What happens to the bacteria and antibiotics after they are spread on fields? - How do farmers, vets and scientists interpret evidence about AMR? What are their hidden assumptions? Can we improve collaborative decision making on AMR risk management? - Can we reduce resistance by avoiding mixing together bacteria and antimicrobials in slurry? - Can we predict the risk of emergence of and exposure to resistant pathogens? Can we predict which interventions are likely to be most effective to reduce AMR, taking into account both human and scientific factors? Through this research, we will learn what can realistically be done to reduce this risk; not just on this farm, but UK wide. We will work with farmers, vets and policy makers to ensure that our results will make a difference to reducing the risk of harmful AMR bacteria arising in agriculture.

Agriculture is a major cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, pollution and biodiversity loss globally and in the UK. Achieving sustainable ('green') growth of agricultural production to feed 10 billion people by 2050 whilst reducing environmental impacts is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Changing our diets and reducing food waste are part of the solution. However, as recognised in the UK government's Clean Growth Grand Challenge, significant green growth in the agri-food sector is also necessary to meet this demand without compromising other targets, in particular that of neutrality in carbon emissions by 2050. The GREEN AG programme will build a long-term, strategic research and innovation infrastructure to develop new UK farming systems which will produce sufficient food whilst reducing emissions and pollution, protecting biodiversity, and enhancing soil health. We call this 'net zero+' as it will balance net zero emissions aims with wider environmental concerns. These solutions will be required at scale if the UK is to meet emission reduction targets, and avoid the unintended consequences of emissions being offshored by increased food imports, or causing damage to valuable ecosystems in the UK. GREEN AG will engage and unite the science community with industry, policy, farmer and NGO stakeholders. We will identify farm management practices with potential to reduce emissions and/or capture carbon without major impacts on food production or other environmental outcomes. We will undertake detailed, integrated measurements of these practices on both experiments and on a network of instrumented study farms (Living Farm Labs). We will use models to define pathways to achieving net zero+ arable and livestock farm systems that minimise trade-offs with production and the environment. Finally, we will use cutting edge data science to provide data, models and tools to enable the transition to net zero+ agriculture. Achieving the ambition of clean, green and net-zero agriculture will require strategic, cross-disciplinary and long-term research - a so-called national capability. This will bring together directed teams from NERC and BBSRC centres - UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Rothamsted Research, National Centre for Earth Observation, British Geological Survey and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. This partnership will bring together complementary expertise in ground and earth observation, sensor networks, measurement of GHG emissions from soils, groundwater and estuaries, pollution, biodiversity, crop and livestock production, data science and modelling from field to national scales, covering terrestrial, freshwater and coastal zones. Our environmental research will complement work on other aspects of the farming system that might support net zero+, including crop breeding, animal husbandry and diet, soil science, and crop nutrition and protection. The GREEN AG national capability will provide the following outcomes for the UK science community and other stakeholders: - New knowledge underpinning effective agri-environmental policies to achieve net zero emissions by 2050; - New funding opportunities levered from the GREEN AG research and innovation infrastructure which comprise a national digital farmland observatory, instrumented study farms, experiments, data and models; - More effective implementation of net zero+ polices and practice through stakeholder engagement and co-design, and through the provision of new decision support tools; - Opportunities for UK researchers and agri-businesses to export this green growth knowledge, technology and innovations to overseas markets.

Maltsters, brewers and distillers are concerned about the long-term sustainability of the barley crop. Seasonal problems in many parts of Europe resulted in a restricted malting barley supply that has only just been alleviated by an above average harvest in Argentina. Within the UK, drought conditions resulted in reduced barley crop quality, i.e. higher protein samples, particularly in Eastern England, where much English malting barley is sourced. Under predicted climate change scenarios, such drought conditions are likely to become more frequent and will affect the spring crop much more than the winter crop, which can escape the worst effects of summer drought through a much earlier maturity. Whilst winter barley might therefore provide a more consistent supply, the proportion bought by English maltsters has declined by over 25% over the past 20 years. This decline is due to the reduced quality level of the winter crop compared to the spring so that distillers can produce 16 more litres of raw spirit per tonne of malt on average from the latter. For an industry predicted to use 600,000t of barley from the 2012 harvest, this is a highly significant difference in production efficiency. All current UK winter barley malting varieties have been derived from Maris Otter, first recommended in 1965. Maris Otter combined the spring malting quality attributes of an older variety, Proctor, with the winter habit of Pioneer. Proctor was the major spring malting variety in the UK for many years but the introduction of Triumph was a quantum leap forward for the spring crop in terms of both quality and yield. In a previous project, we have analysed DNA fingerprints of UK spring and winter barley malting cultivars to identify genetic differences between the two crops that are associated with malting quality. Whilst plant breeders have previously tried to introgress spring quality attributes into winter barley, they have relied on chance events to assemble the right genes, which is an impossible task when the crops differ at thousands of genes. But we now have the knowledge and tools to conduct the introgression of spring attributes into winter barley in a highly targeted manner to test the hypothesis that their introduction will improve winter malting quality. The germplasm emerging from this proposal will then be used by the plant breeding partners of the project in further rounds of crossing and selection to develop improved winter malting quality cultivars that approached the spring quality levels but in a suitable agronomic background for contemporary farming practise and would thus re-generate interest in using winter barley for malting for use in brewing and distilling. As indicated in the previous paragraph, greater use of the winter crop is likely to provide a more consistent supply of malting barley in the future. As malting supplies are becoming tighter due to a variety of market factors, a switch to the higher yielding winter crop would also mean that the effects of competition for land for more profitable crops would have a less pronounced effect upon malting barley supply. As six row barley varieties tend to have a higher yield than two row, a longer term aim is to develop six row malting types that would further decrease the land area required to secure a malting barley supply.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promote global economic and social prosperity while simultaneously seeking to protect the environment. All UN member states are signatories to achieving SDGs under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, competing objectives of SDGs require decision-makers to trade-off SDGs, leading to damaging and unequal distribution of costs and benefits for people and the environment, which ultimately prevents sustainable development. To address this global problem I will apply a novel approach using hydropower as a model system, to deliver the critical step change in interdisciplinary research needed to quantify the trade-offs, conflicts and synergies between SDGs and between stakeholders. This project will identify, forecast, prevent and mitigate conflicts associated with development processes, to achieve equitable sustainable development now and beyond the 2030 sustainable development targets. Our global energy dilemma highlights and exemplifies trade-offs between SDGs. The increasing human population and growing energy demand challenges whether we can have secure, affordable and equitable energy without adversely affecting people and the environment. Solving the multifaceted challenges presented by the global energy dilemma has been hindered by the historic separation of environmental and social sciences and the humanities. This project combines these disciplines to address the complexity of energy development, stakeholder justice, and environmental sustainability. The overall aim of the project is to deliver the tools needed for equitable decision-making, by designing an innovative framework for decision-makers that explicitly considers the complex social-environmental dimensions of development. Large hydropower schemes (dam height >15 m) bring conflicts between SDGs and stakeholders into sharp focus. More than 9700 large hydropower dams have been constructed worldwide providing energy and boosting industrial infrastructure development. However, such dams have displaced an estimated 40-80 million people, and, through reservoir creation and river flow disruption, we have lost environments that are important for biodiversity and climate change mitigation. Thus, hydropower development puts significant pressure on SDGs that focus on local livelihoods and food security, justice and accountability, water, ecosystems and global biodiversity. Despite uncertainty over future energy gains under changing climatic and rainfall patterns, national and international investment for new dams is rising. To deliver the tools needed to ensure development processes are equitable and accountable, this project will engage multiple stakeholders, including those traditionally marginalised in the decision-making process, alongside high-level decision-makers across different socio-political and environmental contexts in Brazil, Kazakhstan, India and Scotland. Data and methods from social-environmental surveys, Earth observation, and the energy justice framework will be integrated throughout this project to develop a toolkit for local people, NGOs, civil society, and high-level decision-makers to increase equity and transparency of development processes. A network of more than 15 world-leading project partners including NGOs, international institutions, expert advisors and academic institutions actively support this research. To achieve international sustainable development, conflicts between SDGs and stakeholders must be prevented and resolved. This project delivers the innovative interdisciplinary tools needed to change current development decision-making practice to explicitly incorporate the complex social-environmental dimensions of development. Thus, this project will ensure that global development is equitable and sustainable now and beyond the 2030 targets.