Climate smart agriculture booster

Climate Smart Agriculture is necessary to protect and enhance food and agricultural production from the impacts of climate change in the EU. In order to enhance and secure CSA, the CSA flagship project contributes to the development, (commercial) exploitation and dissemination of CSA technologies in Europe. Many technological innovations exist already that allow the food and agricultural industries to mitigate and adapt to climate change, however many barriers exist that prevent the adoption of these technologies.
The adoption and diffusion of CSA innovations are often impacted by the immature nature of the technologies and associated business models. Key economic barriers include the impacts of initial high investment requirements and low margins, long pay-back periods, market uncertainty, over discounting of the future, switching costs, market access and differing national markets and regulations. Technical challenges include technological immaturity, the lack of necessary skills and knowledge in the market, compatibility with existing technology, the lack of supporting infrastructure and the dominance of established technologies. Less tangible social barriers also operate, including the impact of habitual organisational routines and norms, the conflict between new technologies and traditional methods as well as presumed associations (i.e. sustainable equals ‘hippy’) and mythical fixed-pie bias, where the environment is perceived as a threat to economic goals.
To overcome these barriers and enhance the adoption and diffusion of CSA technological innovations, the CSA flagship boost the development, exploitation and dissemination of CSA technologies, by:
- Helping CSA technology providers with the development of business models for CSA.
- Connecting technology providers with customers or investors, for example through a European wide network.
- Development of tools and instruments to support the development, (commercial) exploitation and dissemination of CSA technologies, like new business models and new financing and credit systems, supply chain innovations (e.g. certification of CSA products), market information systems, monitoring tool that quantifies the impact of the increased adoption of CSA technologies etc.
- Providing advice for capitalizing on different national regulations or EU wide subsidies.
- Providing assessments of the technologies to provide a ‘quality stamp’ to assure climate appropriateness.