LIFE21-CCA-CY-LIFE AgrOassis

The primary objective of AgrOassis is to assist climatic change adaptation in the agricultural sector of the EU’s two most south-easterly countries, Cyprus and Greece and beyond. For reaching the objectives of the EU legislation and policy on climate action AgrOassis will develop, demonstrate and promote innovative techniques, methods and approaches, best practices as well as close to market solutions on areas which are currently exposed to desertification because of climate, inappropriate land use and wildfire and which are expected to become even more vulnerable under climatic change. It will also markedly contribute towards climate change mitigation, promoting carbon farming and biodiversity restoration. The latter by promoting effective afforestation in degraded field margins and by aiding pollination processes, in regions of poor soil quality and very low natural vegetation cover. 

AgrOassis will regenerate ecosystem services within degraded agroecosystems, but also seeks to identify and remove obstacles related to inappropriate governance and policies, that obstruct the implementation of the EU’s Green Deal Agenda and the aim to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Preparatory work for AgrOassis has identified Cyprus as a hotspot of unsustainable soil management practices connected to widely applied tillage. This appears as an indirect side-effect of governmental policies aiming to enforce CAP EU legislation as well as a direct result of inappropriate counselling towards farmers and inadequate training on how to combat desertification. 

AgrOassis also attempts to mobiliсe the private sector by utiliсing available unexploited resources to promote the circular economy in the agro-sector of Cyprus. At the same time, it will mobiliсe private investment towards close-to-market solutions on green waste sustainability and sustainable soil management in line with the EUs Farm to Fork Strategy.