Horizon EuropeTRL 4-5Agriculture

Crop4Clima

Resilient and environmentally sustainable engineered crops to address climate change

Project details

GA Number

101113038

PROJECT TYPE

EIC Transition

FUNDING

€2.5 m

STARTING DATE

1 May 2023

DURATION

2 years and 8 months

Future crops as carbon sinks

Global warming, caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (in particular CO2), is expected to rise from 2.5°C to 4°C by the end of the century. Increasing temperatures and extreme weather events will likely reduce agricultural productivity and food security. Future crops must act as carbon sinks to mitigate climate change, plus have higher resilience and productivity to feed the global population. The project Crop4Clima is developing new canola and rapeseed variants— significant international and EU crops—able to assimilate 60% more CO2 through photorespiration, requiring 20% less water and increasing biomass while maintaining high oil content. The project is developing these new crops by improving and bringing to commercial use the synthetic TaCo metabolic pathway, which turns photorespiration into a CO2-fixing instead of a CO2-releasing process, leading to increased net carbon-uptake under agronomical standards and drought field conditions. Crop4Clima technology holds commercial prospects for similar C3 crops, such as soybean, cotton, rice, etc. It could increase the resilience and sustainability of crops while converting them into an effective carbon sink.

Partners

EvogeneMax Planck InstituteIN societyAgrobioinstitute

Our Role

  • Assess the LCA/TEA performances of the engineered crops.

 

  • Stakeholder and public engagement, including through Open Science.

 

  • Facilitate the translation of project results into products and the expected pathway up to market deployment.

Milestones Step by Step

A quick overview of the goals achieved by working on this project.

Gallery

  • Rapeseed crops
  • Resilient Crops
  • Evogene Facilties

Crop4Clima is a perfect example of science translated into socially relevant innovation, as it will enable agriculture to cope with the changing demands of climate change.

Laura Martinelli - CEO IN society