Healthy soils are of major importance for the future of the European horticultural and agricultural crop production. Especially in intensive production systems, soilborne diseases are a major factor with a negative impact on soil health. Newly developed best practices and sound crop rotations permit to maintain, improve or re-establish soil health in Europe. The BEST4SOIL project will build a community of practice network across Europe by inter-connecting growers, advisers, educators and researchers. Through this network, knowledge ready for practice on 4 best practices for the control of soilborne diseases (compost/organic amendments; green manures/cover crops; anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD); and (bio)solarisation) will be promoted. Open-access databases with information on the range of pathogens affecting host plants will help the practitioners to build appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies. As innovative tool will BEST4SOIL provide tutorial videos (youtube), easily understandable also to growers with limited language skills. Videos, databases and factsheets are edited in 22 official EU languages to facilitate the innovation management of practitioners throughout Europe. The information will be freely accessible and highly comprehensible to guarantee a smooth knowledge transfer from research to practice. BEST4SOIL will deploy local facilitators to set up a network with active communities of practice resulting in an intensive knowledge exchange. The consortium of BEST4SOIL includes advisers, breeder, communicators, educators, growers, and researchers from eight European countries. Together with facilitators in at least twelve more countries, the network will interconnect an important part of the European growers, advisers and educators, the main stakeholders of BEST4SOIL. https://www.7reasons.net/?page_id=37758

Oh-FINE´s is a 48-month long project that aim to empower European farmers and smallholders through the definition, enhancement and transfer of competitive and efficient organic farming knowledge and alternatives that address farmer’s capacities, consumer needs and evolving food market changes. To this end Oh-FINE will create pan-European Organic Farming Learning Community (OFC) structured in four main technological pillars: 1) to develop a multidimensional framework on the organic farming knowledge and practices; 2) to establish a multi-agent approach organic farming learning system and validate the framework in 5 case of studies areas across Europe, 3) to collect distribute and disseminate to farmers and other stakeholders of easily accessible practice-oriented knowledge focusing on organic farming and covering cereals, oilseeds, protein crops, and livestock, and 4) to develop a Decision Support System ICT Tool for farmers.

Plastic use in agriculture has tremendously increased in the past decades resulting in soil pollution with plastic residues forming besides macroplastics micro (MP) and nanoplastics (NP). MINAGRIS aims to contribute to healthy soils in Europe by providing a deeper understanding and tools to assess the impact of MP and NP in agricultural soil health. To create an overview on the actual situation across Europe, MINAGRIS will assess the use of different plastic polymers in agricultural systems in 11 case study across Europe and identify the resulting types and concentrations of MPs and NPs. Concentrations of other stressors in soils such as pesticides and veterinary drugs will be additionally assessed. MINAGRIS will provide validated analytical tools that allow the quantification and identification of MPs and NPs in soils. Based on the results of the case study sites, controlled experiments will be conducted to analyse the impact of MPs and NPs on physico-chemical soil properties, soil biodiversity, plant productivity, and Ecosystem Services, as well as their potential transfer to other parts of the environment and plants. Furthermore, synergistic effects with other stressors are assessed. Quantification of the impacts of MNP on soil biodiversity and agricultural productivity, their transport and degradation in the environment, their impacts on socio-economic components, and synergies between all of them will make it possible to identify, in a multifactorial vision, the benefits and risks associated with the use of plastics in agriculture. Based on the results, MINAGRIS will quantify the economic, environmental, and social consequences of unsustainable soil management at the field and farm level in different biogeographical regions and, through a Multi-Actor Approach (MAA), develop a practical toolbox for and with farmers for the rapid assessment of soil exposure, at the same time raising relevant stakeholders’ and end-users’ awareness of the issue.

The overall aim of the thematic network ‘OK-Net Arable’ is to improve the exchange of innovative and traditional knowledge among farmers, farm advisers and scientists to increase productivity and quality in organic arable cropping all over Europe, in order to satisfy future market demand. To achieve this, 'OK-Net Arable' has three specific objectives: 1) to create a European network of well-functioning farmer innovation groups representing the best examples of co-innovation by farmers and researchers. The network of farmer innovation groups will serve to exchange experiences in the area of arable crop production and test the innovative end-user and education material developed in the project; 2) to digest and synthesize the considerable knowledge available from the reservoir of scientific and practical knowledge in the area of organic arable farming and to identify the best methodology in learning and knowledge exchange. Based on this easily understandable education and end-user material will be developed; 3) to create a platform for knowledge exchange across Europe unique in organic farming, offering both innovative education and end-user material as well as offering opportunities for farmer-to-farmer, advisor-to-advisor or researcher-to-advisor-to-farmer learning. The multi-actor approach is prominent in this proposal: (1) at EU level with scientific partners and farmers' associations jointly coordinating the work packages; (2) on the local level with farmers, farm advisors and scientists cooperating in farmer innovation groups. The whole consortium covers in total 13 countries from all corners of Europe giving a well-balanced representation of different climate, geographical and socio-economic conditions.