Co-operative Research Programme: Sustainable Agricultrual and Food Systems

Objectives

• The Co-operative Research Programme’s (“CRP”) main aim is to strengthen scientific knowledge and provide relevant scientific information and advice that will inform future policy decisions related to the sustainable use of natural resources, in the areas of food, agriculture, forests and fisheries.
• The objective and work of the CRP are anchored in both a policy and scientific environment in the fields of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, which, more than ever, are developed in a multidisciplinary environment. This happens so as to respond to the varied demands from a range of stakeholder groups with interests in these fields, and to take into account that the world is globalised and food production systems are interlinked.

Themes

• Theme 1: Managing Natural Capital
  • This theme is about how to manage natural capital by making secure the availability and managing the quality of natural resources.
    • Land: Healthy functioning landscapes, with their links to the urban environment, have multiple roles and deliver a range of services to society some of which are noneconomic and intangible in nature. This includes, but is not limited to, leisure, health, tourism and biodiversity conservation.
    • Soil: Agricultural soils provide the foundation for productivity and are an increasingly limiting resource. Inappropriate or exploitative production systems represent a key threat for soil degradation through erosion, nutrient depletion or structural collapse. While some of these threats are reversible, some are not. Potential research areas might include understanding soil processes, rhizophere and plant-soilmicrobe interactions, carbon and nitrogen fluxes, structural properties of soils and the interactions with organic matter and inorganic nutrients, all of which may interact to influence plant health and productivity.
    • Water: Agriculture is a major user of water and in some regions and for some crops may be the primary user. Falling water tables means that water is increasingly being mined, and not replenished. Agriculture is a key driver in the water dynamics of catchments and its total water use may be seriously depleting water availability and impacting on quality and water ecosystems.
    • Biodiversity: Biodiversity issues are increasingly coming to the forefront of the agriculture, forestry and fisheries policy debate. Modern management practices coupled with climate change and other human activities (e.g. urbanisation) put consistent pressures on biodiversity. The resultant loss of biodiversity not only threatens the functioning of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, but also the capacity of society to adapt to certain challenges (e.g. diseases). It is therefore important that management practices take into consideration the protection and enhancement of biodiversity and that policies are being brought to bear so as to define the limits of tolerable impacts.
    • Forests: Forests, when sustainably managed, provide wood biomass and an important carbon sequestration service to society over and above social amenities, water retention, biodiversity and the environmental protection of land. Maximising benefits from sustainable forestry in a multifunctional landscape can contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation, water quality/flood mitigation, prevention and control of damage from pests and diseases, enhancing tolerance to abiotic stresses, solutions for sustainable management and intensification, tree improvement and forest genetics.
    • Aquaculture and Fisheries: The marine and fresh water ecosystems are important providers of food and bio-energy products. Given pressures on terrestrial ecosystems it would be advisable to increasingly focus on the ability of the oceans to reduce the stress on the productive capacity of the terrestrial ecosystem, while recognising that some marine and fresh water ecosystems are already under pressure.
    • Integrated Agricultural Production Systems: Managing the natural resource base and other inputs needs to occur in a systems context which seeks to optimise productivity but maintain sustainability through a healthy natural resource base including biodiversity. This science area provides opportunities for systems modelling and integration studies which also consider the socio-economic, as well as biophysical, dimension of agricultural production.
• Theme 2: Strengthening resilience in the face of multiple risks in a connected world
  • A key dimension of resilience is the ability of the sector to anticipate and respond to different types and levels of risk, whether the origin is market, resources or climate.
    • Risk assessment: Simple, easily accessible risk assessment tools are essential to help governments and managers of agricultural systems to anticipate, avoid and react to biosecurity, climate or market access risks and so minimise impacts at local or country scale.
    • Invasive Species and Biosecurity: With increasing global interactions across countries and continents, invasive alien species are increasingly a challenge and the importance of biosecurity preparedness and risk assessment is growing. Biosecurity science is about securing social, environmental and economic wellbeing by minimising the risks of pests and diseases and enhancing the effectiveness of mitigation and eradication responses.
    • Food safety: Food safety is an essential public health function as are healthier diets and nutrition, sustainable consumption and healthy eating, and technology/processing aspects of food and feed.
    • Emerging Diseases: From a human perspective, the emerging issues of pathogens transmitted from animals to humans (zoonotic diseases), or directly to humans, animals and crops, can have devastating effects across the globe within a short time span. Likewise the emergence of new disease threats to major commodity crops represents real vulnerabilities to global food security.
    • Antimicrobial resistance: Antimicrobials are used in various applications including human and animal medicine, food production, plant agriculture and industrial applications.
    • Climate risks to production: Climate change and climate variability pose significant risks to the sustainability of farming enterprises globally but with particular consequences for the productivity of subsistence or marginal agriculture in resource poor economies.
• Theme 3: Transformational Technologies and Innovation
  • The agriculture and food system has a long history of innovating and adopting new technologies to increase productivity, manage risk and improve environmental, social and economic sustainability.
    • Digital Technologies: The use of digital technologies and related innovation ‒ by farmers and also by policy makers and administrators ‒ offers new opportunities but also brings new challenges. These new opportunities are particularly important in the context of the challenges of climate change and in an increasingly integrated global food system.
    • Advanced breeding tools/Genetic and genomic technologies: The continued development and application of genetic/genomic tools, including precision genome editing, and biotechnology offers significant opportunities for enhanced crop and livestock breeding which can directly address agricultural productivity constraints, and issues related to food security, human nutrition and health.
    • Novel waste reduction technologies: An important part of global food production is lost after harvest and before reaching consumers. In many developed economies a substantial amount is wasted after purchase by consumers. Addressing these losses represent the “low hanging fruit” in addressing food supply on the path to food security.
    • Biofuels: Biofuels, second generation and/or based on marine algae are promising avenues for reducing carbon emissions, but introduce the potential for conflicts in food supply when food crops or arable land used for food production are redirected into biofuel production.
    • Bioproducts and Bioprocesses: There is a growing demand from the private sector in bio-products derived from biologically based feedstocks and bioprocessed on an industrial scale to generate high value products as part of the developing bioeconomy.
    • Innovations in Social Science, Economics and Education: Achieving outcomes of agricultural sustainability and resilience in a resource and climate constrained world requires some particular innovations in the social and economic sciences and in educational support for agriculture, environment and food sciences.

Cost Covered

• CRP Research Fellowship
  • Travel costs (calculated based on a return economy class air ticket. Note that the travel allowance is calculated to cover a one return trip to and from the host laboratory and the place of domicile.
  • Weekly Subsistence Allowance: currently 600 EUR or 650 EUR per week (depending on the cost of living of the host country). This subsistence allowance is to cover all normal living expenses (accommodation, food, etc.) and incidentals (daily travel to and from work etc.)
  • Terminal charges: A lump sum allowance of 165 EUR is paid to cover transportation costs incurred in the taking and leaving of duties at the host laboratory.
• CRP Event Sponsorship
  • A direct subsidy to Event organisers:
    • For in-person or hybrid Events, towards the Travel Costs of the speakers proposed in the application form. Funding not used after the speakers’ Travel Costs have been covered can be used towards general costs of these Events.
    • Or For fully virtual Events, towards the general costs of the Events;
  • AND, for all Events:
    • a contribution of EUR 3 050 towards the publication costs of the proceedings of the Event. This contribution is paid directly to the publishers of the proceedings, unless otherwise agreed with the CRP.

Eligibility Criteria

• CRP Research Fellowship
  • Applicants must be working in an institution located in a country that currently participates in the OECD Co-operative Research Programme (CRP), and the collaborating host institution must be located in another participating country.
  • Applicants should have 4 years of postdoctoral training. The programme is not targeted at PhD students. In exceptional circumstances, consideration will be given to applicants who, although not having a PhD, have the equivalent expertise and have been extensively published. For all applications, priority is given to the overall scientific quality of each application considering its relevance to the Programme’s Research Themes and the Programme’s multi-disciplinary focus.
  • Applicants should have a contract with their present employer that ensures their continued employment after completion of the fellowship. If the contract is less than 3 years, applicants are requested to ask their institution to certify that there will be a continued on-going scientific affiliation with the host laboratory once the fellowship ends, as this ensures that the relationships established during the fellowship are put to beneficial use.
  • Before submitting an application, candidates should have their employers’ agreement to the application and to the take up of the fellowship should they be successful.
  • A candidate who has already been the recipient of a CRP fellowship may apply for a second award, but only 5 years after the year of their first fellowship.
• CRP Event Sponsorship
  • To be eligible for CRP Sponsorship, all Events must take place in a CRP participating country, the Event organisers be citizens or residents of a CRP participating county and speakers proposed for funding for inperson or hybrid Events must also be citizens or residents of a CRP participating country.

For more information, visit OECD.