{"id":44681,"date":"2026-09-30T03:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/projects\/eiris\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T03:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T02:33:14","slug":"eiris","status":"publish","type":"projects","link":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/projects\/eiris\/","title":{"rendered":"EIRIS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Agriculture in the German-Dutch border region faces increasing pressure to reduce the use of chemical crop protection products while maintaining healthy crops, reliable yields and economically viable production. This is particularly challenging in crops such as potatoes and onions, where weeds, diseases and pests can have major effects on crop performance. Biological crop protection, mechanical weed control, improved soil management, robotics, monitoring and digital technologies provide promising alternatives, but these solutions are still often developed and applied separately.<\/p>\n<p>When individual measures are not coordinated, reducing chemical crop protection can create new agronomic, operational or economic risks. The Interreg project <strong>Ecological Innovation for Resilient Integrated Systems (EIRIS)<\/strong> therefore develops and validates integrated cropping systems in which biological, mechanical and digital solutions work together. Dutch and German partners test these combinations under practical farming conditions and translate the resulting knowledge into usable decision support for farmers and advisors.<\/p>\n<p>EIRIS works with a five-part approach:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Baseline: mapping current farming practices, crop rotations and dependence on herbicides, fungicides and insecticides across the German-Dutch border region.<\/li>\n<li>Implementation: combining biological, mechanical and digital measures into integrated cropping systems and testing them under practical field conditions.<\/li>\n<li>Validation: assessing agronomic performance as well as environmental effects, economic feasibility and operational applicability.<\/li>\n<li>Agentic AI decision support: bringing together validated project knowledge, farm conditions and available technologies to support farmers and advisors in selecting suitable strategies.<\/li>\n<li>Uptake: translating validated solutions into practical transition pathways, demonstrations, guidance and a cross-border innovation platform that supports wider adoption.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>A complementary consortium<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The EIRIS consortium brings together research institutions, agricultural organisations, experimental facilities, technology companies and software specialists from the Netherlands and Germany. The partners contribute complementary expertise ranging from crop and soil science, biological control and field experimentation to robotics, precision technology, environmental and economic assessment, agricultural advice and digital decision support. Associated partners further connect the project to agricultural organisations, advisory networks, technology providers and actors throughout the food value chain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Importance for the Interreg region<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The border region between the Northern Netherlands and Northwest Germany has important potato and onion production and faces many of the same challenges concerning crop protection, soil health, environmental pressure and the transition towards more resilient agriculture. At the same time, both sides of the border offer different but complementary research capacities, technologies, agricultural networks and advisory structures.<\/p>\n<p>EIRIS brings these strengths together in a shared cross-border environment where existing and emerging solutions can be combined, tested and evaluated as complete farming systems. Rather than developing another isolated alternative to pesticides, the project focuses on understanding how different measures can reinforce each other in practice. In this way, EIRIS builds a stronger practical knowledge base for reducing dependence on chemical crop protection while maintaining productive, resilient and economically viable agriculture in the German-Dutch border region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"template":"","pr-category":[277],"pr-priority":[288],"pr-stat":[315],"class_list":["post-44681","projects","type-projects","status-publish","hentry","pr-category-energy-climate","pr-priority-a-more-innovative-programme-area","pr-stat-new"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projects\/44681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projects"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/projects"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"pr-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pr-category?post=44681"},{"taxonomy":"pr-priority","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pr-priority?post=44681"},{"taxonomy":"pr-stat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deutschland-nederland.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pr-stat?post=44681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}