Policy Recommendations rising farms
to the climate challenge

The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA) founded last year, is a diverse group of organizations based in USA that is focused on voluntary, incentive-based climate solutions. On May 2021 FACA published a document on Joint Policy Recommendations to help guide the development of climate legislation in six main areas: soil health, livestock and dairy, forests and wood products, energy, research, and food loss and waste. More specifically in this publication FACA recommended that USDA should lay the foundation for a potential carbon bank by first developing a series of pilot projects that would focus on scaling climate solutions, removing barriers to adoption, improving carbon accounting standards and ensuring equitable opportunities.

The following include an overview of the climate policy recommendations proposed by FACA:

• Providing voluntary, incentive-based tools for farmers to maximize the sequestration of carbon and the reduction of other greenhouse gas emissions, as well as increase the resilience of the land.
• Supporting the development and oversight of private sector markets for GHG credits.
• Promoting public and private sector tools to incentivize farmers to prioritize and scale climate-smart practices.
• Offering incentives for farmers to reduce energy consumption, increase use of on-farm renewable energy, and make continued progress toward reducing the lifecycle GHG emissions of agriculture- and forestry-based renewable energy.
• Streamlining consumer-facing packaging and implementing a public private-partnership to reduce the GHG impact of food waste and loss within the food value chain.
• Increasing federal investment in agriculture, forestry and food-related research substantially and continuously,

This series of interventions in the proposed focus areas will assist USDA to build a robust foundation for a carbon bank. Additionally, they will help USDA build confidence in validating the climate gains produced by specific practices and management approaches. This approach will lay the grounds for a voluntary carbon bank that creates opportunities for all producers and landowners to participate in rapidly developing voluntary private markets and leverages private investment in agricultural and forestry climate solutions.

The alliance is also actively working on additional in-depth tax credit policy recommendations to enable availability of tools and resources necessary for farmers to contribute to climate solutions.

  You can access the full report here.

STARGATE reports

Over this two-year journey, STARGATE has produced significant results. The project’s latest publications, presented in peer reviewed papers and events are the following:

Jedlička, K., Hájek, P., Andrš, T., Čerba, O., Valeš, J., and Zadražil, F. Agroclimatic atlas – prototype, EMS Annual Meeting 2021, online, 6–10 Sep 2021, EMS2021-475.

STARGATE partners presented a prototype of Agroclimatic atlas - a web map application in the frames of the European Meteorological Society Annual Meeting. The agroclimatic atlas application aims to provide a comprehensive overview of agriculture-related climatic characteristics of an area of interest in a time retrospective.  The application can be used by both an individual farmer or a precision farming expert exploring a wider area.

Charvat K, Bergheim R, Bērziņš R, Zadražil F, Langovskis D, Vrobel J, Horakova S. Map Whiteboard Cloud Solution for Collaborative Editing of Geographic Information. Cloud Computing and Data Science [Internet]. 2021 Aug. 6 [cited 2021 Sep.1]; 2(2):36-5.

The Research Article Map Whiteboard Cloud Solution for Collaborative Editing of Geographic Information was presented in the Cloud Computing and Data Science journal. For the purpose of exploiting the potential of cloud connectivity in geographical information systems, the Map Whiteboard technology introduced in this article does for web mapping what Google Docs does for word processing; create a shared user interface where multiple parties collaboratively can develop maps and map data while seeing each other work in real time.

Remember you can access all STARGATE’s Scientific Publications.

What’s new with STARGATE

STAGATE - AGROXIX - MIXED webinar
"Resilience in Agricultural Landscapes"

Mark your calendars for the 10th of November and join STARGATE, MIXED, and AGROMIX H2020 projects, in their 2nd joint webinar on Resilience in Agricultural Landscapes. Stargate will present the role of Earth Observation and Early Warning Systems in Agricultural Resilience and chair a session on Climate Adaptation through the Use of Intelligent Geospatial Services. Click here for the agenda and registration link.

STARGATE presented at the EC
“Reducing Methane Emissions NOW”

On the 8th of October Prof. Thomas Kotsopoulos of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki presented the STARGATE project on the EC “Reducing Methane Emissions NOW” hosted by MEP Maria Spyraki (EPP) Rapporteur on the EU strategy to reduce methane emissions and Co-Chair of the European Parliament Intergroup on “Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development”. Prof. Kotsopoulos presented solutions to eliminate methane emissions originating from the agricultural sector according to STARGATE’S good practices. Find our more here.

STARGATE  featured in EIP-AGRI

STARGATE is very proud to have been hosted on the EIP-AGRI September newsletter. This leading publication presented the STARGATE project in the EIP-AGRI NETWORK ACTIVITIES section. The agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) works to foster competitive and sustainable farming and forestry that 'achieves more and better from less'. It contributes to ensuring a steady supply of food, feed and biomaterials, developing its work in harmony with the essential natural resources on which farming depends. You can access the publication here.

STARGATE visits farms and conducts potato field surveys

At the beginning of July, representatives of Vidzeme Planning Region and Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences visited Vaitalas farm (Valmiera county, Latvia) and questioned the farmers about the most important challenges in potato growing in Vidzeme. During the visit, drone flights were performed over the field with a multispectral camera, which shows the proportion of healthy hops in the field, as well as identifies places where damage to plant hops is expected. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was also determined over the drone fly. The farm visits will be repeated with field surveys at different stages of crop development. Find our more here.

STARGATE poll #3 results

STARGATE poll#3 surveyed 2 issues, (i) the main knowledge barriers that limit farmers’ adoption of climate-smart agriculture and (ii) personal views on the ranking of the three pillars of climate-smart agriculture. The main knowledge barrier was identified to be lack of information on benefits of change, whilst adapting and building resilience to climate change was assessed as the most important CSA pillar. Click here for more details on the poll’s results.

STARGATE celebrated its second birthday!!

On September STARGATE celebrated a journey of 2 years! Over this two-year period, we have managed to establish a strong stakeholder community, detail a user requirement database, develop a multi model ensemble for weather prediction models, a suite of Strategic and Tactical Decision support tools and much more. A cordial BRAVO to all partners for their devotion to the project and a huge THANKS to all of you for supporting us!!!

Conferences & Events 

GACSA Annual Forum
  November 18-19, 2021
    Online    Info

The Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture - GACSA is organising its Annual Forum that will take place online on the 18th and 19th of November 2021. This Annual Forum will be a highly interactive event that will offer valuable learning, networking opportunities and open discussions with experts on CSA. You may register for the event at DAY 1 & DAY.

EIP-AGRI workshop Farm data
for better farm performance
  December 9-10, 2021
    Online    Info

DG AGRI and EIP-AGRI are organising the EIP-AGRI Workshop Farm data for better farm performance. This event will take place online on December 9 – 10, 2021. The overall aims of this workshop are to take stock of on-going successful projects and initiatives, to explore the role of the different stakeholders on economic and environmental data collection at farms and their use for agricultural production and to provide an environment to exchange best practices on economic and environmental farm data collection, use and sharing.

6th International Conference
on Climate Change 2022
  February 17-18, 2022
    Évora, Portugal    Info

The 6th International Conference on Climate Change 2022 which will be held on February 17th and 18th, 2022 online. The theme of the conference is “Meeting Climate Challenges Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic”. ICCC 2022 is the global platform for the discussion of new advances and research findings in the field of Climate Change. The conference will gather leading ecologists, chemists, physicists, biologists, material scientists, and other researchers around the world who are active at the frontiers of this diverse and multidisciplinary field.

14th European Farming Systems Conference
  April 10-14, 2022
    Budapest, Hungary    Info

The 14th European Farming Systems Conference (IFSA – European Group) will be held in the University of Évora, Portugal, and hosted by the Mediterranean Institute for Agriculture, Environment and Development (MED), on 10 – 14 April 2022. The main focus of this years’ Conference will be Farming Systems Facing Climate Change and Resource Challenges. IFSA – European Group invites researchers and practitioners from both natural and social science backgrounds to join in Évora, to actively participate in the discussions, and to contribute with presentations of their work.

16th International Conference
on Climate-Smart Agriculture
  May 23-24, 2022
    Hybrid    Info

The International Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture will be held in Berlin on May 23-24, 2022. This conference aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Climate-Smart Agriculture. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered, and solutions adopted in the fields of Climate-Smart Agriculture.

News to read 

USDA takes on Climate-Smart Agriculture
The Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Partnership Initiative was recently announced by USDA. The Initiative seeks to promote climate-smart agricultural practices and USDA hopes to receive proposals from a wide variety of stakeholders interested in voluntarily collaborating to test wide-ranging ideas that sequester carbon and reduce GHG emissions on farms and working lands. The initiative was credited to the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance, founded last year, provided recommendations to USDA. Find out more here.

myEUspace competition
EUSPA has launched myEUspace competition and the deadline for proposals’ submission is the 15th of November. The objective of the competition is to support the development of innovative commercial solutions that are leveraging EU Space data from Galileo and/or Copernicus. Solutions proposed may target a number of innovation areas. For the innovation area “Farming by Satellite” the focus is on technological solutions that manage the variability of agricultural production, improve crop yield, reduce environmental impact and optimize the food chain. More on myEUspace

New FAO publication
FAO recently published a report on the “Synergies and trade-offs in climate-smart agriculture – An approach to systematic assessment.” This publication analyses of the synergies and trade-offs that can occur within climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The aim of this analysis is to develop a systematic characterization of possible synergies and trade-offs in CSA, as well as provide a tool to guide CSA practitioners through the assessment of synergies and trade-offs during the design and planning of CSA strategies or interventions. Access the report here.

Global Outlook on Climate Services in Agriculture
Another interesting FAO publication is the first edition of the Global Outlook on Climate Services in Agriculture: Investment opportunities to bridge the last mile gap. It comes at a pivotal time as the world faces unprecedented climate and environmental challenges compounded by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report provides latest data on climate services, with valuable case studies that highlight opportunities and lessons learned to ensure the equitable use and provision of climate services for farmers and other users in the agricultural sectors. Access the report here.

There is always more news to read in STARGATE’s Library here. 

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PROJECT COORDINATOR: Professor Dimitrios Moshou
THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY-HELLAS (CERTH)
dmoshou@auth.gr, d.moshou@certh.gr