We are Europe’s climate-smart innovation hub and community for agriculture

“To solve tomorrow’s unprecedented global challenges…

Converging global mega-trends of climate change, population growth and urbanisation are creating unprecedented new pressures for agriculture and food production. To feed a world of over nine billion people by 2050, today’s agriculture must get ‘climate-smart’: It must undergo a step-change in resilience, resource-efficiency and productivity over the next three decades.

Climate change is a major threat multiplier for global food security, impacting agricultural productivity and the stability of food production.  However, while agriculture contributes around 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, agriculture and food are also key industry sectors that can reduce and remove (‘sequester’) meaningful amounts of global GHG emissions.

Europe is one of the world’s largest food producing blocs.  European farmers, foresters, food producers and retailers all have a vital role to play in fostering the innovation needed to deliver global food security, energy security, a low carbon economy and global sustainable development goals.

…we must transform our farming and food production systems today”

The Climate-smart Agriculture Booster or CSA Booster is Europe’s leading innovation hub, community and collaboration platform pioneering the transition to climate-smart agriculture across Europe, and around the world.

We bring together a multi-stakeholder ecosystem of public and private sector partners including some of the leading research institutions in Europe, corporates, start-ups and international organisations to incubate and catalyse the application, adoption and scaling of innovative and sustainable CSA solutions across Europe and beyond; and to accelerate and de-risk investments into CSA.

Our work tackles three main objectives:

• Productivity – sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, yields and incomes
• Climate adaptation – building resilience to climate change and enhancing food security
• GHG mitigation – reducing and removing GHG emissions wherever possible

Here are some of CSAb’s highlights:

• Agrisource – we launched Europe’s first open innovation platform (OIP) dedicated to climate-smart agriculture. The OIP is a major hub for CSA knowledge and expertise, enabling collaboration, co-creation and matchmaking between stakeholders on supply and demand sides.
• CSA MOOC – we launched the first free massive open online course (MOOC) for CSA in English, with French, German and Chinese versions to be launched in 2018.
• CSA regional hubs – we have established regional CSA hubs in Italy, France and the Netherlands. A Nordic hub will launch in 2018, and we are exploring one in CEE/Central Asia.
• Project portfolio focused on:
  • Agtech: technology innovations in soil resilience and carbon sequestration, precision and digital agriculture, and sustainable water and land use practices.
  • Agri-finance and insurance: data and risk analytics, M&E tools, public-private and blended-return agri-financing facilities, and insurance-transfer/sharing mechanisms
  • Innovation and technical assistance: value chain analysis, policy analysis and support and business modelling and co-creation.

Our innovation network

Established in 2015, CSA Booster (“CSAb” or “Booster”) is a flagship programme of Climate-KIC’s Sustainable Land Use theme, sponsored by EIT, a body of the European Union.  It is registered on the UN Environment’s Climate Initiatives Platform (CIP) – a database for international non-state cooperative climate initiatives supporting the Paris Agreement.

To date, CSA Booster has over 50 partners and activities across Europe in all major regions. It is the European regional hub and partner for the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA) initiative, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Our growing partner community provides access to a diverse network of leading CSA subject experts, solution providers, major value chain actors, investors, funders and other CSA stakeholders.