5th plenary meeting held online
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The 5th plenary meeting was to be held in Budapest, Hungaria in June 2020, but could not be held due to the Covid-19 travel restrictions. Instead, a number of meetings are held online in the week of June 15th - June 19th, and the presentations given are available on the plenary meeting 5 webpage (login required). The presentations given are also available on the SoilCare ownCloud data portal.
Help needed in developing Future Scenarios
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The SoilCare project is developing a set of future scenarios with the aim of identifying different pathways for European agriculture, from now until 2050, that will help to support the development of policies that are future-proof. The scenario development process is intended to provide a contribution in the following ways:
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- develop scenarios capable of testing the effectiveness of proposed policies, and to be used in the design of policies
- enable social learning and increase strategic capacity when considering policy alternatives and uncertain futures
- increase the understanding of difficult futures to operate in, and find ways to take action now against these futures
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First SoilCare Policy Brief available
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The first in a serices of SoilCare policy briefs aimed at providing concise summaries on particular soil-related issues identified in the project with recommendations for policy options has been produced. This first policy brief entitled Soil health policies for CAP and Agri-environment Directives shows how soil health policies can be integrated into CAP and Agri-Environment Directives and suggests 3 policy options for increasing the uptake of soil health practices:
- Build SICS clearly into CAP Pillar I as cross-cutting farm practices for public goods .
- Increase facilitators for farmer information exchange and training for advisors in soil health practices (e.g. via Farm Advisory Services).
- Use SICS to cross-cut policy frameworks and directives: e.g. cover crops to address both the Water Framework and Nitrogen Directive
New SoilCare Paper: Social capital factors affecting uptake of sustainable soil management practices: a literature review
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27 April 2020 A team from the SoilCare project has published a new open access paper in Emerald Open Research: "Social capital factors affecting uptake of sustainable soil management practices: a literature review". The narrative reviewed aimed to understand how social capital influences the adoption of sol management practices in developed nations. The review found that the four components of social capital – trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of farmers to change their soil management.
