Transformative Intercropping systems for One Health
The scientific guiding principle of TRIO is the development of sustainable and climate-resilient crop production through an ecological-functional intensification of cultivation systems based on the mixed cultivation of plants with distinctly complementary strategies of resource appropriation. The scientific goal is an improved understanding of complex soil-plant, plant-plant, plant-microbiome and plant-agricultural ecosystem interactions as a basis for sustainable plant production. The increase in production and quality through the intensification of ecological processes, modeled here as an example for Hesse, is geared towards the health of soil, plants, animals, humans and the planet (“One Health” approach). Using an experimental platform developed across contrasting locations, scientists from the three agricultural university locations of Kassel, Giessen and Geisenheim are quantifying and monetarily evaluating the ecosystem services of new combinations of resource-complementary crops in TRIO using and further developing state-of-the-art methods. Model-based spatial and temporal upscaling of the point-based experimental data generates site-specific knowledge on climate- and biodiversity-protecting and climate-change-adapted cultivation systems for the production of high-quality food in Hesse, which is directly incorporated into agricultural practice and advice via the associated partners.
In the sub-project D1 “True Cost Accounting” led by our chair, the total societal costs of the innovative mixed cropping systems are determined by integrating economic operating data from the experimental and practical farms and ecosystem performance information. Here, site-specific variances in the effects on production and regulatory functions caused by climate change and the cultivation system are taken into account. In addition, in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the University of Kassel, the monetarily assessed yield and ecosystem service dynamics are spatially scaled to the whole of Hesse. The entire project area D “Socio-economic evaluation” of TRIO, which is dedicated to the economic evaluation of these mixed crop systems, taking into account their ecological effects, is coordinated jointly with Prof. Dr. Ramona Teuber.
Associated partners: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen (LLH), Forschungsring and Ökoplant e.V.
Project team: Marielle Rüppel (Scientific staff, focused on the Monetary evaluation of ecosystem services in mixed cultures) Prof. Dr. Christian Herzig
Project website: Socioeconomic evaluation in TRIO
Funding authority: Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HMWK) – LOEWE-Schwerpunktförderung
Project duration: 1/2024-12/2027
Corresponding research focus of the chair: Sustainability management