Welcome to IMPROVE-P

Phosphorus (P) is one essential element for plant, which can neither be produced synthetically nor substituted by any other element. In organic farming, long term P management is one of the most important management challenges, as high soluble P fertilizers derived from fossil sources are not allowed and their use does not meet the basic ideas of closing nutrient cycles by effective management measures.  

Organic farming systems rely on the efficient use and recycling of available resources. Currently, some mineral nutrients like phosphorus (P) are used only once to produce food. Subsequently, they are lost due to poor recycling of organic wastes back to farmland. There is an urgent need to improve the recycling of P from urban areas and the food industry, back to cropland. However, the traditional application of some of these waste products in agriculture is facing increasing concerns about pollutants (heavy metal, xenobiotics) and protection of soils and environment.

There are many technological alternatives to recycle and clean the phosphorus already available, affecting P bio-availability and pollutants content. The different options will be evaluated from an agronomical and ecological point of view in the frame of this project.

Factsheets on alternative phosphorus fertilizers

New fact sheet assessing the suitability of sewage sludge precipitation products for use in organic farming:
Partners of the CORE Organic II funded IMPROVE-P project compiled information on different methods for treatment of different potential recycled P sources like sewage sludge, meat and bone meal, about ashes obtained from P rich feedstocks, and one about compost and digestates obtained from urban wastes.

The fact sheet are available for free download at the right column of this homepage.

Participants of the kickoff-meeting in Copenhagen

IMPROVE-P Consortium with (from left) Cecile Thonar (FiBL CH), Jakob Magid (Univ. Copenhagen), Paul Mäder (FiBL CH), Anna Freudenthaler (BOKU), Jürgen-Kurt Friedel (Boku), Julia Cooper (Univ. of Newcastle), Astrid Oberson (ETHZ), Stefan Hörtenhuber (FiBL AT), Emilio Alvarenga (Bioforsk), Torsten Müller (Univ. of Hohenheim), Anne-Kristin Loes (Bioforsk), Gregor Meyer (ETHZ & FiBL), Kurt Möller (University of Hohenheim, project coordinator), Eva Brod (Bioforsk), Andreaas de Neegaard (Univ. of Copenhagen), Minze Wollmann (Univ. of Hohenheim)

Our IMPROVE-P-team during the midterm meeting in Hohenheim in September 2014

The project started in June 2013 and will end in Mai 2016. IMPROVE-P is coordinated by Kurt Möller (University of Hohenheim) and is financed by the CORE Organic II Funding Bodies in the frame of the FP7 ERA-Net project CORE Organic II.

Acknowledgement:

The partners of the IMPROVE-P consortium gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this project provided by the CORE Organic II Funding Bodies, being partners of the FP7 ERA-Net project, CORE Organic II (Coordination of European Transnational Research in Organic Food and Farming systems, project no. 249667). For further information see: www.coreorganic2.org