Workplan
WE FOLLOW THE STEPS
The concept and the outcomes of GOOD are made real through the Agroecological Weed Management Network (AWMN) and its objectives to advance knowledge, build capacity, and to reduce and ultimately eliminate herbicide use. The AWMN is dedicated to set up and link Living Labs across Europe and stakeholders across the agri-food value chain, through a series of co-creation activities.
Agroecological Weed Management Network
The GOOD AWMN is a hybrid (physical and digital) thematic network that links various stakeholders across the agri-food value chain through the Living Labs and a digital hub in the GOOD platform.
Living Labs
The GOOD Living Labs are open-innovation ecosystems that will co-create with stakeholders, test, evaluate and demonstrate the combined results of several non-chemical and digital solutions for weed management that will run for three growing seasons to create sustainable impact and become the orchestrators among different stakeholder groups (farmers, advisors, industry, consumers, researchers, policymakers).
Research & Innovation activities
The GOOD project goes beyond the state-of-the-art by combining AWM strategies with inoculation and digital technologies, improving the efficiency of AWM solutions. With the aim to develop, assess and demonstrate context-specific AWM strategies and their combinations, each LL will implement novel AWM approaches and assess feasible and efficient combinations of AWM strategies.
OUR METHOLOGY
Knowledge base and co-creation activities within the AWMN to benchmark and identify existing needs, barriers and factors affecting farmers decision-making and to construct a robust and fair ecosystem for GOOD activities
Research activities and demonstrations that will provide scientific and robust evidence of optimal and innovative combinations of holistic AWM approaches, including assessments of social, economic and environmental impact, the overall sustainability and performance, as well as trade-offs of different alternative weeding strategies. Living-Labs (LL) will be co-created with stakeholders and established in 6 EU pedoclimatic conditions in both annual and perennial crops to promote AWM practices in conventional, organic and mixed farming systems. The use and combination of cover crops along with several cultural practices, the use of beneficial microorganisms and digital tools will be assessed towards the agroecological manipulation and management of weeds and the increase of crop productivity and farmers’ income.
Raising awareness through a series of open access tools for various stakeholders including an AWM repository to foster the uptake of AWM solutions, an open access digital AWM Toolbox to assist decision-making for weed management, a training module on AWM solutions, to provide ‘easy-to-adopt’ and ‘custom-made’ guidelines and Best Practices reports to deliver quantitative and qualitative evidence of the optimal solutions across the EU,
Scaling-up of GOOD outcomes through policy recommendations and custom-made business models to reduce herbicide input across several European agro-ecosystems.
GOOD PROJECT WORK PACKAGES
WP1
Development of an Agroecological Weed Management Network
(leader: USC)
Objective 1.1
To develop a repository of current weed management practices and use of herbicides in several EU agroecosystems and provide WPs 2-3 with the available and most needed AWM strategies for the selected management scenarios.
Objective 1.2
To develop tools for WPs 2-6 to evaluate the impact of developed AWM strategies and policy support on the end users’ decision-making.
Objective 1.3
To support WPs 6-7 with knowledge and tools for the integration of scientific edge, policy and technology into farming practice.
Objective 1.4
To support WP7 with knowledge of drivers, challenges and opportunities behind the decisions of farmers for a more focused dissemination.
WP2
Transition of conventional farming systems
(leader: AUA)
Objective 2.1
To design and test AWM strategies within LLs, for both annual and perennial crops.
Objective 2.2
To reduce or eliminate herbicide use.
Objective 2.3
To provide standards and typologies for the agroecological transition of conventional farming systems adopted at the national level.
WP3
Enhancement of organic and mixed farming systems
(leader: CICYTEX)
Objective 3.1
To provide standards and typologies for the agroecological promotion in organic and mixed farming systems to be adopted at national level.
Objective 3.2
To develop feasible AWM solutions tailor-made to organic and mixed farmers.
WP4
Improvement of crop and cover crop competitive ability against weeds
(leader: UC)
Objective 4.1
To assess the effect of various AWM strategies on composition, diversity, and abundance of weed communities and the impact on yield components in the previously tested AWM initiatives.
Objective 4.2
To assess weed management issues in the transition phase in relation to soil health.
Objective 4.3
To assess any positive effects (i.e., nitrogen fluxes from legume cover crops) and drawbacks of weed management strategies on soil health and biological fertility.
Objective 4.4
To research and innovate seed inoculation of biostimulant native AMF symbionts, adapted to the different ecosystem characteristics, to guarantee cover crop establishment, edaphic biodiversity enhancement and sustainable weed management.
WP5
Digitalization of Agroecological Weed Management systems
(leader: AUA)
Objective 5.1
To combine AWM solutions with innovative approaches, by integrating image processing and AI pipelines for weed detection activities
Objective 5.2
To test high-end digital solutions (UAVs, robotic mechanical weed control and weed spot spraying) for AWM in various crops and farming systems (arable, perennial), aiming to the adoption and proper use of digital technologies and the chemical weed control reduction.
Objective 5.3
To develop the easy-to-use AWM Toolbox that will determine and provide to all interested parties the appropriate agroecological solution for each case.
WP6
Assessment of social, economic, and environmental impacts of Agroecological Weed Management
(leader: BSB)
Objective 6.1
To predict the medium and long-term impact of the management changes implemented in WP 2-5 on the diversity and abundance of the weed flora and yield loss from weed competition at plot and farm level.
Objective 6.2
To assess the social, economic and environmental impact of AWM, compared to current weed management practices.
Objective 6.3
To identify individual and societal barriers and drivers of AWM adoption to optimize national strategies.
WP7
Dissemination, communication and demonstration
(leader: DELPHY)
Objective 7.1
To ensure that all relevant information from WPs 1-6 is communicated and disseminated to stakeholders in participating countries and engage them in a broad discussion on the state of the art of AWM.
Objective 7.2
To emphasize the creation of communication resources that can be embedded into a web-based platform to ensure durability after the project.
Objective 7.3
To make results of the project known to stakeholders in non-participating EU and Associated Countries.
Objective 7.4
To provide input about AWM for National Action Plans considering main characteristics of member states to be deployed by the policymakers.
WP8
Project management and coordination
(leader: UC)
Objective 8.1
To implement project infrastructure for efficient reporting and internal communication.
Objective 8.2
To organize the kick-off meeting and the international conference.
Objective 8.3
To address financial, ethical, legal, intellectual property and administrative matters related to the consortium and the project, as well as manage gender equality issues, in terms of EU procedures and rules.