A Horizon 2020 project about intercropping
European farming systems are increasingly being challenged by more varied and extreme weather conditions, which are expected to increase in the near future due to climate change. Cultivation of several plant species on the same field at the same time (intercropping) may in this respect help to ensure more adaptive and stable farming systems. This applies to main crops as well as cover crops.
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The ReMIX project explores the benefits of species mixtures - intercropping - in order to develop more diverse, robust and dynamic farming systems in cooperation with committed farmers. Through dialogue with farmers, advisors and other researchers, ReMIX seeks to challenge current practices and value chains through demonstrations of different species mixtures on specific farms. This creates new knowledge and platforms for knowledge sharing across traditional disciplines in the agricultural sector - such as conventional and organic farming.
The project focuses on demand-driven innovation and based on networks of actors (multi-actor networks) with the greatest possible involvement of all interested stakeholders. The goal is to test and develop practical solutions to the greatest benefit to all involved. The project investigates and supports everything from end-user needs clarification and user-driven innovation to demonstrations of brand new species mixtures and practical solutions.
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- Overcome barriers to stimulate the adoption of species mixtures by farmers and in agri-food chains.
- Unravel mechanisms of plant-plant interactions to maximize resource use efficiency.
- Determine the role of species mixtures in controlling diseases, pests and weeds and alleviating yield damages.
- Demonstrate the role of species mixtures in improving ecosystem service provision and development of resilience to biotic stress.
- Identify key traits and create novel breeding and phenotyping methods. Generate novel breeding material to grain legume / cereal mixtures.
- Develop generic rules for assembling species for efficient cash crop production using process-based simulation models.
- Develop new management techniques to optimize species mixtures performance.
- Optimize settings and specifications for agricultural machinery for harvesting and separating grains.
- Develop a toolbox, a serious game and technical booklets for farmers and advisors.
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Roskilde University is the Danish partner and puts special emphasis on cover crop mixtures through trials, demonstrations and networks. It is done through cooperation with the consultancy Agrovi and the University of Copenhagen in the project "Green fields, strong roots". As a partner, Roskilde University is responsible for supporting knowledge sharing and stakeholder involvement, as well as making socio-technical analyses of opportunities for increased use of species mixtures in a number of European countries.
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ReMIX is funded by the EU Research and Innovation Program (Horizon 2020: Agreement No: 727217) and is implemented by a consortium of 23 European partners from 13 countries, which together represent research, advisory, farmers and the agricultural industry. ReMIX is divided into six work packages (see below). The project runs over a four-year period ending in May 2021.
Read more about the project
- Website http://www.remixintercrops.eu
- Facebook RemixIntercrops
- Twitter @RemixIntercrops
- Roskilde Universy Research Portal forskning.ruc.dk/en
Project overview
Six things you should know about the ReMIX project.
More about ReMIX
He wants to create the agricultural systems of the future
Focusing on actor-driven innovation and the desire for sustainable development, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen began two new projects this year, both funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme.
The project's work packages
Project division into seven work packages (WP) and organisational structure for maximum interaction between the various activities of the project. Learn more about the work packages here.
Project members from Roskilde University
Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen
Professor, METRIK, Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University
Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen is a trained agronomist from the then Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in 1996. Since 2014, he has been a professor at Roskilde University at the Department of People and Technology, with a focus on climate, environment and transition processes in agriculture and energy systems. In a technology-social research environment, knowledge, tools and activities are produced to stakeholders interested in the bio-based society (food, feed, energy and raw materials) in an international, national, regional and local development and planning perspective. Previous employments at the Technical University of Denmark, focusing on sustainable bioenergy technologies and at the University of Copenhagen, focusing on alternative more diversified cultivation systems form the basis for these activities.
Through his research, Henrik has always been working towards a dynamic and continuous socio-technical development of sustainable farming systems, typically from an agro-ecological perspective. The focus is, among other things, on carbon and nutrient cycles, with inspiration from nature's efficient cycles where nothing is wasted; each part of the cycle creates nourishment for the next part (closed-loop). This includes how greater crop diversity on the individual field (intercropping) can contribute to more self-regulating and self-sufficient cultivation systems inspired by the agricultural systems prior to the fossilisation of the current dominant agricultural system. It all takes its starting point in the current and prevailing societal agenda on both climate, environment and health. In the recent years, increased focus is brought on social conditions as a crucial factor for transition processes. As human beings, we create our own conditions as well as we form part of the reality which any new initiatives / technologies / acknowledgments is to be founded on.
Henrik’s role in the project
Henrik is the leader of work package 1 (WP1) and responsible for RUCs obligations in the ReMIX project. He is the main Ph.D. supervisor for Ane Kirstine Aare.
Ane Kirstine Aare
Ph.D. student, METRIK, Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University
Ane Kirstine Aare (akaare@ruc.dk) is a Ph.D. student in the METRIK research group and mainly associated with the ReMIX project. Ane is educated as an environmental planner (Tek-sam) at Roskilde University, where she has primarily focused on topics related to sustainable development of the agricultural sector. In addition, she has been working in a small consulting company for three years in which she has worked on a wide range of topics in sustainable consumption and production, including green procurement and food waste.
Ane has special experience in the areas of sustainable agriculture, food value chain, knowledge production and exchange, actor involvement and multi-actor networks, actor network theory, socio-technical system theory, facilitation and project management.
Ane’s role in the project
Ane contributes to all RUC's obligations and deliveries in ReMIX. Ane is responsible for the daily communication and planning of the project.