Context

The mission of the Crop-MATCHING project, beyond fulfilling the project’s formal requirements, is to initiate a transformation in future agriculture by “matching” farming practices, activities, and crops with nature. The project adopts and applies a novel agro-ecological concept that aligns farming systems with natural processes, mimicking nature to deliver long-lasting and effective solutions. This biomimetic approach is specifically directed toward small-scale farming, which constitutes the backbone of rural communities and supports sustainable, biodiverse, and healthy agricultural production. Our ambition is to strengthen small-scale farming and mobilize the sector around innovative, nature-tailored solutions.

Objectives

The overall objective of Crop-MATCHING is to set up a holistic approach to identify information, underutilized knowledge and best sustainable practices from small-scale farms, mix and match them into crop combinations (such as crop rotation, strip cropping, or vertical cropping) and generate new impartial and tailored knowledge specific to small farmers'/foresters' requirements. Crop-MATCHING by proposing successful and easy-to-use small-scale farming practices, aims to provide an ‘automotive’ solution to the problems smallholder farmers/foresters face in EU agriculture and at the same time, line up with the European Green Deal, Rural Vision, Climate policy and Farm to Fork strategy. What is of great concern is the fact that the number of small farms follows a sharp decrease. In this context small farms produce most of the healthy and biodiverse food that we eat every day, they provide local jobs and sustain rural activities, and they secure the resilience of our food system. Crop-MATCHING considering the important role of smallholder farmers/foresters and their need to have sustainably fair economic returns to continue farming activities and remain in the rural areas proposes the wide use of successful and easy-to-use farming practices. Through, the exploitation of various networks it is aimed to identify, diffuse, and convince farmers/foresters to adopt these successful practices. Through the proposed procedure, initially, the underutilised knowledge that appears in the literature (or identified in previous EU projects) will be mapped (more than 100 practices); almost all European territory and several pedoclimatic zones will be covered, as small and subsistence farms don't present the same structure and need everywhere. Conceptualized actions to communicate ready-to-use practices, through Crop-MATCHING, including digital cloud solutions, info packages, fact sheets, practice groups, open-access databases, e-learning, infographics, videos, website and social media.

Activities

The Crop-MATCHING project aims to support smallholder farmers and foresters by identifying and promoting effective crop-matching practices that improve sustainability, resilience, and farm performance across ten partner countries. The project follows a multi-actor approach, combining scientific research, stakeholder engagement, digital tools, and knowledge transfer to ensure practical and scalable solutions.

The project begins by mapping and structuring a multi-actor community, identifying smallholder farmers’ needs, challenges, and expectations, and reviewing existing knowledge and best practices related to crop matching from previous European initiatives and scientific literature. Based on this analysis, successful case studies (“lighthouse practices”) will be identified and documented.

Crop-MATCHING will also assess the information and training needs of smallholder farmers and foresters and conduct a socioeconomic analysis of the identified success stories. This work will lead to the development of innovation practices (IPs), training materials, and a structured curriculum aimed at improving knowledge uptake and supporting sustainable crop-matching decisions.

To ensure wide accessibility and engagement, the project will design and implement an open digital learning environment. This platform will host interactive e-learning courses based on the developed curriculum and will function as an Open Educational Resource (OER) hub, communication and collaboration space, and dissemination platform. The digital solution will be enhanced with machine learning and artificial intelligence components to provide personalized recommendations and support decision-making through the Crop-MATCHING cloud platform.

The project will further promote knowledge exchange and uptake by transforming success stories into practical applications and organizing cross-fertilization events that connect farmers, advisors, researchers, and other stakeholders. Communication activities will also include storytelling approaches and social norms campaigns designed to inspire wider adoption of innovative crop-matching practices.

Finally, dedicated work packages will ensure the effective communication, dissemination, and exploitation of project results through targeted outreach and awareness activities. Strong project management structures will coordinate the consortium, ensure compliance with ethical and legal requirements, and maintain transparent collaboration with the European Commission and all stakeholders.

Through these activities, Crop-MATCHING aims to empower smallholder farmers with knowledge, digital tools, and collaborative networks that enable more sustainable and efficient crop-matching strategies.