Sustainable crop production via protection of functional biodiversity

EcoStack is a Horizon 2020 project which is working to develop and support ecologically, economically and socially sustainable crop production via the enhancement of ecosystem services and the protection of functional biodiversity. The approaches they are applying to achieve these aims are:

1. The creation of a multi-stakeholder platform to create and share knowledge on sustainable crop production needs and solutions among different actors: farmers, advisors, policy makers, industry, and scientists.
2. Evaluation and optimisation of ecosystem services, such as pest antagonists and pollinators together with management of landscape elements (e.g. hedgerows, flower strips).
3. Designing and testing practices that support ecosystem services within the crop (e.g. varieties mixtures, intercropping, mulching).
4. Developing integrated systems and bio-based plant protection tools for ecological, economic and social sustainability of farming systems.

Ecostack presented their project at the recent EU CAP Network workshop ‘Innovative arable crop protection - using pesticides sustainably’. Download their presentation here, and more information on the workshop here.

Further project info: