GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposals are expected to:

• Assess current and future (foresight) contribution of various forms of urban farming to:
  • Overall food supply, food security and resilience mainly for urban citizens but also addressing potential food security impacts on rural populations, factoring in megatrends and potential risks around key inputs or conditions enabling urban farming;
  • Evolution of farm income in urban and rural areas, the distribution of value added in the supply chain and possible effects on the bargaining power of supply chain actors;
  • The provision of ecosystem services in urban and rural areas against the evolution of environment and climate conditions (including water and nutrient use and cycling, biodiversity protection, energy use, soils including soil health, regulation of the urban heat island effect etc.), in relation with European Green Deal objectives;
  • The provision of social benefits (e.g., access of new and/or young farmers, gender equity, place-based/community development) and improvement of social capital (e.g., values, networks, governance) and community cohesion in urban and rural areas. Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) aspects should be an integral part of the proposal;
  • The demand for new skills, training and educational offer also taking into account the technological or social dimensions of different forms of urban farming.
• Compare the conditions under which various types of urban, peri-urban or rural farmers operate in order to identify the challenges that may justify targeted regulatory or policy initiatives. Conditions are to be understood in a broad sense, including e.g., initial investments, production, quality control, labelling, marketing and retail as well as the legal and enabling environment in which they operate.