CROPDIVA wants underused crops back on the fields

Enhancing European agrobiodiversity: Putting six underused arable crops back in the fields: oats, hulless barley for human consumption, triticale, buckwheat, faba beans and lupins.

Auch in Österreich könnte es bald wieder mehr blühende Buchweizenfelder geben. (c) pixabay — Buchweizen in der Blüte (c) pixabay

Horizon 2020: 27 partners from 12 countries

At the end of 2020 the European Commission approved the CROPDIVA project as part of the Horizon 2020 Programme. The project was realized through a collaboration of experts from 12 countries, 27 different universities, companies and organizations. Ghent University is the coordinator of this ambitious project, which officially started on September 1^st, 2021.

Innovative & challenging

The goal of the Horizon 2020 project CROPDIVA is enhancing agrobiodiversity. Twenty seven European partners are joining forces to enhance agrobiodiversity in Europe. They will achieve this by focusing on crop diversity and creating local value chains. The CROPDIVA concept has an innovative and challenging approach. The project activities will focus on (1) improving the resilience of cultivation systems, (2) aligning the economic and social needs of farmers with ecological targets, and (3) marketing of new food/non-food products that meet the needs of consumers.

All selected crops have a very broad genetic background that can be used to cross in important characteristics relating to factors such as resilience to stress and an improved nutritional value. Moreover, these crops have major ecological benefits. Many of them produce nectar-rich flowers or fix air nitrogen, for example. This will lead to highly resilient agroecosystems with greater adaptability to climate change, a better use of genetic resources, and greater food diversity.

The goal: biodiversity management at all levels

The results of CROPDIVA will not end up in a dusty pile of paperwork somewhere, but will be used for innovative solutions in the whole chain to facilitate biodiversity management at all levels. Would you like to be kept informed on the work of the CROPDIVA project? Then subscribe to our newsletter.