ASTER - Agroecology-inspired Strategies and Tools to Enhance Resilience and ecosystem services in tomato crop

Tomato is a key crop all over the world but particularly in the Mediterranean Basin. Its market value in EU represents about 7 billion euro. Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal contribute with over 90% to EU production. Turkey represents the fourth largest tomato producer of the world tomato production. In the north of Africa tomato is a main crop in Morocco and in Tunisia whilst it is in constant expansion in Algeria. Tomato can be grown both in open field or protected conditions and short or long periods of production can be possible due to the large availability of commercial varieties. Regardless the type of cultivation or the duration of the cycle, increasing quantities of external inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides) are required to cope with: i) nutrition issues linked to the deployment of the soil; ii) resident and invasive species made more aggressive by the climatic change and the development of resistance to pesticide; iii) water limitation which is more critical in arid and semi-arid climates of the Mediterranean area due to climatic change. An emerging issue is also the decline of pollinators whose role in enhancing the tomato production has been widely recorded. In small farm systems, ecosystem services, such as plant nutrition, pollination and naturally occurring biocontrol are much needed since they all improve yield and quality while limiting the external inputs. The agroecological approach, whose main pillars are the conservation (protection), the enhancement and the exploitation of functional biodiversity, the sustainable protection from biotic and abiotic stresses and the circularity of the production chain, offers efficient solutions that progressively reduce the external inputs and the management costs.

ASTER promotes specific tools (root symbionts, biobased tools) and strategies improving the use of resources (water, nutrients), the adaptation to climate change (e.g drought, invasive species) and the environmental conditions for rural populations. Conservation, increase and exploitation of functional biodiversity will foster the sustainability and the resilience of tomato crop system in the top world productive countries all located in the Mediterranean Basin.ASTER particularly targets small farmers by promoting a management model based on crop diversification that guarantee an enhanced resilience in response to social, economic and environmental stresses particularly those linked to climatic change. ASTER model generates an extra income deriving both from the reduction of external inputs (as replaced by ecosystem services) and from specific companion plants. The support received by a large certification company (Agroqualità s.p.a., Italy) indicates how ASTER model is considered reliable and feasible. ASTER promotes the use of symbionts, antagonists, bio-based tools and strategies to reduce dramatically the dependence on chemical inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides). ASTER devoted a specific WP to dissemination and formation that involves from the beginning the stakeholders (P8 and 19 supporters including main farmers associations and 1 certification agency) via the interactive platform (SIP) to widely publicize its results via web, social channels, videos and on-site meetings, didactic farms.

In many participating countries, the agroecological approach is virtually unknown as are the benefits it brings to conservation, resilience and sustainability of tomato crop. ASTER has concentrated these activities in a single workpakage to allow a continuous interchange of information and updating to reach efficiently the widest possible audience in all participating countries. ASTER model can be easily transferred to other crops, annual or perennial, in the participating countries and elsewhere. Therefore, dissemination, exploitation and communication activities are a central part of ASTER whose WP6 is entirely dedicated to by involving all partners also to overcome linguistic barriers that could hamper the dissemination/uptake of project results. a) Dissemination and exploitation1 of results Plan for the dissemination and exploitation of the project's results’ i) Dissemination - Project presentation to press (local, national), media (local, national), stakeholders, governmental bodies, local authorities; at least one interview of project presentation will be requested in all participating countries and project leaflets (digital and paper format) will be distributed (months 1-3) - Web and social media pages (month 2 with trimestral update) - Stakeholders Interactive Platform (month 2): partner and supporting stakeholders already grouped, other stakeholders to be invited soon after the beginning of the project - Annual meetings for the presentation of projects results with specific open sessions (months 14, 26, 36) - Local Workshops (at least 2/participating country months 18, 30) - Scientific papers on JCR journals (all in “Gold” open access format)(expected from month 24 onward) - presentations at scientific congresses (at least 3 national and 3 international)(from month 24 onward) - Divulgative papers (digital and paper format)(expected from month 16 onward) ii) Exploitation - on-site training courses in all participating countries: modules of 15 people each, lasting 3 days (at least 1 module/year in selected Countries) (month 28 onward), - video courses targeting farmers and students of agricultural schools and Universities (month 30) - installation of 2 permanent didactic farms in Greece (AUTH) and Morocco (ENAM)(from month 24 onward) - Stakeholders Interactive Platform to deliver ASTER innovation to the market (from month 2 onward) iii) End users of project results - scientific community in terms of new knowledge generated by the project (assessed by citation indexes of published papers) - P8 and supporting stakeholders - small farmers (the main target of all ASTER activities) involved since the beginning of the project with the selection of experimental fields and participating to all experimental activities - local and National Plant Protection Organization targeted by videos and dissemination material - students of agicultural schools and Universities willing to start a small farm activity targeted by formation courses and lectures Barriers to the application of the results of the project might arise from skill shortages and from traditional/conventional value chains, less keen to innovate. In this context, the training activities should create a breach in the wall opposing to innovation showing the social, economic and environmental benefits stemming from the application of the agroecological model of ASTER. The data generated by the project will be of various types including: the composition and features of the soil biodiversity; the composition and features of the Hymenoptera biodiversity concurring to ecosystem services (natural antagnists, pollinators); the composition and features of innovative bio-derived compounds for plant nutrition and protection; the socio-economic-enviromental impact of the project. Data will be exploited for the elaboration of a strategy to improve the resilience and the sustainability of tomato cultivation, to preserve water, to reduce synthetic inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides), to increase yield production (in quantity and quality) and guarantee better life conditions to smallholders. The participants to the project will sign an agreement to manage the ownership and access to key knowledge. All participant responsibles will set up a committee, together with the Coordinator, to deal with knowledge management and protection (ALIP see below). The panel will decide about the shared data that can immediately published and those that will be subject to an embargo period in order to guarantee the protection and possible exploitation of intellectual property. b) Communication activities2 3 Communication activities (see point - a - and WP6 for more details) for the promotion of the project and of its findings will be addressed to all the different categories of stakeholders (professionals, scientists, farmers, producers, entrepreneurs, associations), to school and academic world (primary and secondary schools, Universities, Research Centers), to governmental Institutions (local, regional and national authorities), press (local, regional, national) and to the general public. Communication will be focused on the main aim and the expected impact of the project in terms of social, environmental and economic benefits. Interviews, a promoting video, digital and paper leaflets in all native languages will be distributed to all targets of communication in all participating countries. A projet page will be set up on the web (with different access levels and with links to the institutional pages of participants) and on the main social media. They will be all updated periodically (at least every 2 months). P8 and supporting stakeholders have been already involved in the communication activities about the project during the preliminary meetings. They agreed to participate to the Interactive Platform (SIP) and gave their availability to participate to the diffusion of project activities and results (support letters are available to demonstrate the engagement of supporting stakeholders). SIP will guarantee a constant flow of communication and information between academic and non-academic actors, lasting beyond project end. Lectures at school and university will be organised in each participating country to present the themes of agroecology, sustainability, safe food and climatic change, and how ASTER addresses all of them. For each communication activity or product, a specific terminology will be adopted (layman, technical, academic) to reach the largest possible audience.