In the EU, 60-70% of soils are degraded as a direct result of unsustainable management. However, tackling this multifaceted challenge is not an easy task, mainly because farmers' decisions are influenced by a wide range of factors, making it difficult to define regenerative soil management practices that are simultaneously effective, economical, have demonstrable yield benefits and are easy to implement. In this context, the goal is to foster a collective awareness, at the the level of five Mediterranean regions, that soils and humans must be understood as social-ecological systems and that no organisation/solution alone is capable of sustainably transforming the system. The desired change can only emerge when the innovation process is supported by an exploration phase enabling actors to identify their personal (from individuals to organisations) drivers, ultimately aligning purposes and behaviours toward impactful collective actions. To demonstrate this, the project will apply co-creation tools to multi-actor governance structures, emphasising the building up of a shared awareness of soil threats over the identification of specific technologies. The main objectives of the proposed plan are: 1) to explore regional needs and drivers, and to validate governance models for operating multi-actor co-creation processes; 2) to establish a network of five agro-innovation hubs sustained by underlying business models; 3) to define harmonised regional baselines for 7 out of the 8 indicators found in the Soil Mission Implementation plan; 4) to kick-start the multi-actor co-design and validation of solutions for soil health that are practical and scalable; 5) to facilitate the diffusion of innovation through a plethora of communication and dissemination actions. GOV4ALL concentrates on 3 Mediterranean pedo-climatic zones, where the hubs will serve as sustainable innovation centres, aiding the Soil Mission's objectives and inspiring soil regeneration regionally and beyond.

The main goal of the CREDIBLE project is to build momentum and trust for the implementation of carbon farming in the EU. This will be primarily achieved by setting up and moderating a network of initiatives/projects/stakeholders (referred to here as the Network of Networks - NoN) for favouring transparency, environmental integrity, and methodology standardisation in soil carbon accounting. Such a NoN will be responsible for pushing forward multiple discussions (articulated around three main themes: which practises; what standards; how to monitor) and is expected to evolve from a mostly technical/scientific network at the onset of the project, into a process catalysing policy making and business innovation toward its end. The transparent, open access, multi actor dialogues required to build trust and co-create solutions will be orchestrated around three annual European Carbon Farming Summits, which will present opportunities for the NoN to interact with the broader stakeholder community and grow to the point it would attract further fundings for long term sustainability. Through the action, four specific objectives will be achieved: O1) to build and disseminate a practical toolbox for promoting carbon farming, capable of taking into account local land uses, best practices, and multi-actor interests; O2) to identify options for benchmarking and selecting standards, certification mechanisms, and policy instruments for carbon farming; O3) to favour the establishment of a network of soil carbon data collectors and repositories to improve measuring and monitoring carbon dynamics; O4) to build up processes and tools to drive conversations for the upscaling of carbon farming. CREDIBLE’s ambition is to support the European Commission and the Expert Group on Carbon Removal in the identification and upscale of solutions for soil carbon farming.

<< Background >>The project underlines the need to improve university education in the agricultural sector to train students on the relevant skills for becoming agripreneurs 4.0 (which is currently barely absent. It becomes fundamental for academics to develop new collaborations with other Universities, but also companies working in the sector (providers of Precision Agriculture services) and PA farmers, in order to have an overall vision on the field and being able to foresight technologic and market changes<< Objectives >>One of the aims of SPARKLE was to bring together research, Sustainable Precision Agriculture (SPA) farmers, and students to develop and fill the gap in the educational offer to prepare farmers and agriculture's business managers of the future. The project aimed to develop and release an e-learning educational offer keeping together entrepreneurial competencies and SPA knowledge, thanks to the practical experience of SPA farmers, providers of SPA services and according to students’ needs.<< Implementation >>The pilot test phase let 206 students become “agripreuners 4.0” across Partner countries. Pilot actions executed in different Countries tested the flexibility, adaptability and transferability of the developed educational outputs enabling multiplication in various cultural environments, both in the Partnership and outside. Moreover, the quality of educational outputs was cross-validated among participants of various backgrounds and geographic settings and collectively improved when necessary.<< Results >>The main result of the project was the creation of a new training program for university students, agri-entrepreneurs, academics, service providers, school students in the form of an e-Learning course, in order­­ to enhance their technical, business-oriented skills and entrepreneurial activity in a smart environment. The course was composed of 12 modules on SPA-related topics, 8 hours of entrepreneurial education, 4 hours of on-field activities. Additional training resources were also provided.

The EC has set the ambition to become climate neutral by 2050. As not all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be avoided, such as GHGs from biological processes in agriculture, carbon removal will become increasingly important to meet the neutrality targets set. Besides carbon capture and storage by industry, carbon sequestration in the land use sector will need to compensate for the remaining emissions. In this respect, reliable yet cost-effective systems to monitor, report and verify efforts by land managers become increasingly important. This is particularly relevant for the international GHG inventory reporting, and for the development of payment systems to reward land managers for sequestering carbon and reducing GHG emissions by carbon farming (CF). The interest in CF schemes is substantial, as illustrated by the large number of (pilot) payment schemes that have been initiated in recent years. Most of the schemes are experimenting on relatively small geographical areas with a relatively small number of land managers involved. In the ‘Sustainable carbon cycles communication’ that was launched in December 2021, the EC has expressed the challenging ambition that ‘every land manager should have access to verified emission and removal data by 2028 to enable a wide uptake of CF’. MARVIC has been specifically designed to generate instruments and knowledge that enable fulfilling this ambition. The main goal of MARVIC is to develop and test a reliable Framework for the design of harmonized, context-specific MRV systems (‘MRV Framework’) for assessing carbon stock changes in soils and woody biomass and soil GHG emissions. The development of a generic MRV Framework, applicable to all agricultural land-use activities, is essential for boosting faith in public and private CF schemes in Europe.