Presentation of the CropBooster Roadmap to the Commission

Over the past few months we have been finalizing the CropBooster-P project. In the project we developed for the European Commission a roadmap to future-proof our crops. This CropBooster Roadmap, also known as “the White Paper describing the route to improved crop yields in Europe”, contains two sections; the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and the Implementation Plan. The SRA outlines our plan to improve crop yield, harness crops against the negative effects of climate change, increase resource use efficiency and sustainability, and increase (nutritional) quality. The implementation plan forms a blueprint for a proposed large scale pan-European consortium envisioned to carry out the research agenda in a period of 10 to 15 years.

The CropBooster Roadmap was officially presented and handed-over to the Commission in a meeting in Brussels in October 2022. On this occasion, we also presented as separate documents the Executive Summary of the roadmap as well as a Policy Brief highlighting the alignment of the CropBooster Roadmap to current EU Policies.

With the delivery of the CropBooster Roadmap, the CropBooster-P project formally ended and now a new phase has started in which we, with support of the EPSO Working Group Future Proofed Crops and many other parties, want to ensure that this roadmap will be followed-up and executed with support of the European Commission.

René Klein Lankhorst
Wageningen University & Research
Coordinator CropBooster-P | Co-chair EPSO Working Group Future Proofed Crops

Links:

• The CropBooster Roadmap
• Executive Summary
• Policy Brief
• FES Special Issue