Projects

soil-x-change

Fostering cross-border knowledge exchange and co-creation on sustainable soil and farm management 

The project

Soil-X-Change will help to connect farmers, actors, policy makers, projects, and initiatives to speed up innovation and promote faster, wider co-creation and transposition of innovative solutions into practice. It will contribute to effective Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation S by intensifying thematic cooperation between researchers, farmers, and other stakeholders in the EU. Soil-X-Change will support the green transition, smart agriculture, climate-neutrality, and sustainability areas, as well as enhancing and exchanging the knowledge of the main actors. Soil-X-Change reflects the needs of 151 direct partners, and will collect, combine, harmonise, analyse and integrate the results and data product developed by the different project partners. Soil-X-Change will disseminate and share innovative practices across 9 member countries.  

The Soil-X-Change project will bring together European Innovation Partnership Operational Groups (EIP OGs) and key stakeholders working on sustainable soil and farm management to create an EU-wide network, share knowledge, and introduce ready-to-use practices that will enable farmers to make the right decisions related to agricultural production practices. At the end of the project the extended knowledge and innovative ideas of member and non-member OGs will widen the scope of their activities and showcasing their result to an increased number of stakeholders and farmers in an international environment and network across EU countries.  

Soil-X-Change will use a bottom-up approach (farmers to OGs) and will reinforce and share practical knowledge using the main dissemination channels suitable for farmers and practitioners. Soil-X-Change will develop and deliver a data Dashboard and Adaptation guide that will facilitate successful dissemination and out-scaling of research results and ready-to- use practices in a visual and easy-to-understand data presentation format. This EU-wide network, best practices handbook, and workshops will boost co-design and co-creation of new methodologies and will enhance co- innovation, establishment of new OGs, and international collaboration. 

Background

Sustainable soil and farm management practices are essential for healthy agricultural soils, for the environment, and for a sustainable food production system. Practices such as cover crop, minimum tillage, and crop diversification among others have been shown to improve soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, soil structure, water retention, and nutrient cycling, which are indicators of sustainable food production and soil management in agroecosystems. Sustainable crop production systems respect the environment, improve efficiency in the use of resources and integrate ecological, biological, physical and chemical principles, without harming the surroundings. Despite continuous research and development in agriculture, a significant number of research results and technologies related to best practices for soils and farm management are still scattered. Initiatives such as the European CAP Network provide promising solutions to these challenges. However, much attention is put on collaboration between project coordinators and other stakeholders with little attention to farmers and agriculture practitioners at the field scale. These approaches hinder knowledge transfer and disaggregation of information that would otherwise serve to assess the effectiveness of best practices at regional, national, and continental scales.  

background

There is an ever increasing (market) pressure on manufacturing SMEs in EU to be in the same time very competitive and also eco-friendly. In the domain of manufacturing PET products this aspect is extremely important since manufacturing PET resin generates more toxic emissions (nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide, benzene) than manufacturing glass. Producing a 16 oz. PET bottle generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions to air and water than making the same size bottle out of glass. Even worse, most toxic releases went into the air, and the plastics industry contributed 14% of the national total (https://ecologycenter.org/plastics/ptf/report3/). The manufacturing process of plastic water bottles alone releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the surrounding oxygen becomes contaminated, making it harder to breathe and, in some regions, even making the residents sick.  

However, SMEs producing PET bottles (incl. the selected pilot user for this proposal) are lacking the knowledge and experience in the context of organizing more environmentally friendly production.  

objectives

1) Set up a new and empower already existing networks both national and EU level to enhance experience exchange, peer-to-peer learning and dissemination of knowledge from sustainable soil management related EIP OGs and other similar practice-oriented projects and initiatives. 

2) Collect, evaluate, harmonize and consolidate existing data and information on soil management best practices with attention to input-efficient and soil health-friendly site-specific approaches, innovation knowledge and information generated by EIP OGs and other project initiatives and develop new data products, supporting materials and tools for knowledge dissemination and technology uptake.  

3) Identify and analyse gaps between real needs and available solutions/practices regarding sustainable soil management and OG working processes, resulting in fact sheets, research briefs and policy briefs.  

4) Communicate and disseminate EIP OG outcomes in an easily understandable, acceptable and implementable format via optimised dissemination, exploitation and communication materials.  

5) Embedding the Soil-X-Change project and the EIP OGs in the EU AKIS community and encouraging further cross-country EIP collaboration in order to sustain the Network and leverage impact. 

approach

Soil-X-Change follows a phased approach, consisting of the following four pillars: 

1) STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT – connection, activation and intensification of thematic cooperations. 

2) KNOWLEDGE UPTAKE AND DEPLOYMENT – the engine of co- learning and co-creation.

3) TAILORED SOLUTIONS TO NEEDS – a pinpoint between supply and demand.

4) SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE – the go forward strategy.

impact

Supporting the new innovation agenda for Europe and supporting the objectives of: the EU soil strategy for 2030; the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030; the EU action plan “Towards a Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil; the bioeconomy strategy; the chemicals strategy for sustainability by helping the ecological transition required by the European Green Deal; climate neutrality by 2050; reduction of GHGs from the agricultural sectors; reduction of the EU’s dependence on non-renewable resources; promotion of synergistic measures to protect biodiversity.  

Assisting the achievement of the Farm2Fork strategy objectives to enhance climate mitigation, increase climate resilience by accelerating the transition to sustainable, healthy and inclusive food systems; empowering farmers to transform their production methods more quickly and efficiently and make the best use of nature-based, technological, digital and social innovations. 

Supporting and/or establishing synergetic initiatives such as EIP-AGRI operational groups, living labs, and S3 platform. 

Following the multi-actor approach: I. making the R&I process demand driven, shared and relevant to society; II. genuine and sufficient involvement of users of the project results backed up by intermediaries and actors who contribute with further expertise and innovative ideas relevant to the topic’s objectives, and support communication and dissemination. 

partners