Towards climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soils

The main objective of EJP SOIL is to create an enabling environment to enhance the contribution of agricultural soils to key societal challenges such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, sustainable agricultural production, ecosystem services provision and prevention and restoration of land and soil degradation. Knowledge harmonization and harmonised soil information and reporting practices will be developed. Knowledge application deals with ways to overcome barriers for adoption of novel practices in a European context, co-developing adequate tools and providing evidence-based recommendations for EU policies. The Agricultural Research Centre (ATK TAKI) is involved in i) the development of an agreed knowledge base and database to improve the effectiveness of European agricultural and environmental policies, ii) harmonise databases as baselines on agricultural soil quality indicators, properties, and management systems; iii) set the agricultural potential along with sustainable target values of SOC, agricultural soil degradation and fertility, as a function of different European pedo-climatic conditions and management systems.