GreenGrass is a research network funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the umbrella of Agricultural Systems of the Future. Securing grassland as a matrix for important ecosystem services in a multifunctional agricultural landscape requires a paradigm shift in the use and valuation of this type of land use. The diversity of grassland is the essential basis for ecosystem services. This diversity is threatened by the abandonment of grassland use and intensified cultivation. These processes continue to cause species loss as well as the loss of important ecological services (pollination, biological control). The unchanged continuation of current farming practices, in which cows are hardly ever put out to pasture, is clearly not suitable for preserving or further developing the comprehensive value of grassland. The sustainable utilisation of grassland must be enabled by innovative value chains that reduce trade-offs between agronomic productivity and biodiversity and create synergies. Sustainable intensification of grassland understood in this way must therefore integrate both high-end production and information technologies and modern forms of participation. This can create attractive income opportunities for agriculture and meet the ecological and social demands placed on grassland.

To this end, GreenGrass brings together a wide range of scientific disciplines, institutions and stakeholders from agriculture and nature conservation, as well as industry and trade, in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary network. GreenGrass initiates a transformative research and development process in which the partners are involved on an equal footing from day one in order to achieve development and successful introduction into agricultural practice. The scientific partners represent the necessary breadth of agricultural and production technology, landscape ecology, economics, remote sensing, information technology and transformation research. Practical experience is represented by consortium partnerships and strategic partnerships. Consortium partners participate in physical development processes. These include companies that develop grazing technologies, agricultural businesses and the Grassland Centre of Lower Saxony/Bremen.

The strategic partners represent agriculture, downstream processing industries, retail, special-purpose associations and nature conservation organisations, expanding the GreenGrass network to ensure the necessary transformative strength of the alliance. They contribute ideas, assessments and expectations, thereby making a decisive contribution to the development and continuous adjustment of the GreenGrass innovation. The aim is effective co-development, which is achieved through intensive exchange between the partners in the living labs as a transformation platform for collaborative development. It is also planned to involve strategic partners in practical tests, e.g. store tests or willingness-to-pay tests in farm shops and food retailers.

GreenGrass pursues the following closely related objectives:

Z1. Development and testing of animal guidance technologies (virtual fencing) for controlling free-roaming cattle herds in the countryside, development of efficient grazing systems, optimisation of the agronomic and ecological performance of grassland – Work package Grazing systems

Z2. Development and testing of innovative remote sensing technologies for analysing the forage production and biotic characteristics of the landscape in high spatial and temporal resolution as a basis for the efficient management of livestock in the landscape and optimised pasture use – Work package Landscape

Z3. Development of a spatially and temporally explicit, interactive, multi-level information system for modelling and evaluating the agronomic, economic and ecological performance of novel grazing systems; creation of user interfaces that enable comprehensive participation by stakeholder groups – Work package Information

Z4. Development and analysis of effective approaches to capitalising on grassland and its ecological services, as well as attractive sources of income for farmers – Work package Market

Z5. Integration and analysis of the diverse economic, ecological and social requirements and expectations of various stakeholders (farmers, nature conservation organisations, consumers, businesses, citizens) in the innovation process – Work package Stakeholders