Grants to Increase Resilience Against Input Price Fluctuations

The European Commission (EC) has launched the proposals for Analysing fossil-energy dependence in agriculture to increase resilience against input price fluctuations.

Scope

Proposals should:

• Use foresight methods to elaborate scenarios of fossil energy and mineral fertiliser use evolution and dependence. Where available, reference scenarios of the European Commission (DG ENER) should be used to advance the state of the art;

• Improve the capacity of models to take into account direct and indirect energy uses and prices;

• Cover both macro and micro levels in the analysis. At the micro-economic level linkages should be established with the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN) under development by the European Commission;

• Develop tools to support farmers’ decision-making for optimal use of energy and mineral fertiliser, to improve economic, environmental and climate performance of farming systems.

Funding Information

The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:

• public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and

• cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant).

Expected Outcomes

Successful proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Better analytical tools and capacity to integrate the use of fossil energy and energy-intensive inputs in modelling and in socio-economic analysis more broadly;

• Improved decision-making by farmers in relation to the consumption of energy and energy-intensive inputs, in particular mineral fertilisers;

• Better capacity of the farming sector to cope with variations in the price of energy and energy-intensive inputs;

• Direct and indirect dependence of the sector on hydrocarbons is reduced.