H2020 BEST4SOIL Project: Promoting 4 Best Practices for Soil Health in Europe
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2018 -2022
- Assigned Budget 1.998.299,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing Horizon 2020
- Project website Proyecto BEST4SOIL
Healthy soils are essential for the future of European agricultural and horticultural production. Especially in intensive production systems, soil-borne diseases are a major factor with a negative impact on soil health. Recently developed best practices and appropriate crop rotations make it possible to maintain, improve, or restore soil health in Europe.
The BEST4SOIL project will create a network of communities of practice across Europe by connecting farmers, advisors, educators, and researchers. Through this network, practical knowledge on four good practices for controlling soil-borne diseases (compost/organic amendments; green manures/cover crops; anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD); and (bio)solarization) will be promoted. Open-access databases with information on the variety of pathogens affecting host plants will help practitioners establish appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies.
As an innovative tool, BEST4SOIL will provide video tutorials (on YouTube), easily understandable even for farmers with limited language skills. Videos, databases, and fact sheets are available in 22 official EU languages to facilitate innovation management for professionals across Europe. The information will be freely accessible and easily understandable to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge from research to practice. BEST4SOIL will deploy local facilitators to establish a network with active communities of practice that will generate intensive knowledge exchange. The BEST4SOIL consortium includes advisors, breeders, communicators, educators, producers, and researchers from eight European countries. Together with facilitators from at least twelve other countries, the network will connect a significant portion of European producers, advisors, and educators, key stakeholders in BEST4SOIL.
The project's first activities were: building the website www.best4soil.eu , data mining the databases, and constructing the databases (one for nematodes and one for soil-borne pathogens). The two open-access databases contain information on the host status and damage potential of many soil-borne diseases and nematodes for the most important arable and vegetable crops and green manure crops. The front end of the databases is a Decision Support Tool, an interactive tool that helps farmers and advisors build healthy crop rotations.
The tools are accessible via the following links: https://fungi.soilhealthtool.eu/en-gb/Pathogen-scheme and https://nematodes.soilhealthtool.eu/en-gb/Nematode-scheme . By the end of the project, 3,400 people had used the nematode database, and 4,200 had used the pathogen database. Another important activity was the production of 20 videos on four best practices: green manure crops, compost and other organic amendments, anaerobic soil disinfestation, and (bio)solarization. The videos were produced in English and then translated into 21 other languages by native speakers. Each video includes a fact sheet with additional information on the topic, also available in English and 21 other languages. Best4Soil produced 50 practice summaries, which were published on the EIP website: The factsheets are available on the EIP website: https://ec.europa.eu/eip/agriculture/en/news/factsheets-soil-health-investment. In the second phase of the project, the focus was on communication and dissemination of the results.
For communication, the project used social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The project has 312 LinkedIn followers, with an average of 13,834 impressions; 1,666 Facebook followers, with a reach of up to 300,000 followers per post; and 873 Twitter followers, with 364,800 impressions. Through YouTube, the project reached a large number of people: 3,873 subscribers, 435,000 views, and 3,800,000 impressions by the end of the project. A summary of Best4Soil videos can be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxNdPKKgUvqtEX-lKu26_pw/playlists . For dissemination, Best4Soil organized training workshops and other events.
From November 2020 to March 2021, the project organized online workshops in four different climate zones in Europe. The shift to an online event provided the opportunity to host sessions in national languages and a plenary session in English. This created an opportunity for non-English speakers to participate in the workshops. The total number of workshop participants was 1,737. In 83 workshops, we trained 2,443 people on various soil health topics. Another activity was the creation of Communities of Practice (CoPs). In total, 52 CoPs were created, with a total of 553 participants. The videos and fact sheets were promoted to educational institutions across Europe, and more than 600 institutions were contacted. Around 30 confirmed they would use Best4Soil materials. The project results were presented at the final conference, including the feedback received. The final conference was attended by 726 participants. The conference video playlist was posted on the Best4Soil YouTube channel and garnered 2,716 viewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F11l-mzW6Qs&list=PLBW9RvjqRHrtgj11TXihP3Ng49OCyqWjj .
The importance of healthy soils. Healthy soils are crucial for the future of European agricultural and horticultural production, in order to provide healthy and sustainable food for European society. Particularly in intensive production systems across Europe, soil health is at stake; various soil-borne diseases and nematodes have a negative impact on soil health and agricultural production. New best practices and effective crop rotations allow farmers to maintain, improve, or restore soil health in their fields. Best4Soil is a thematic network on soil health in Europe.
The project provided information through fact sheets and videos on soil health-related topics and created a European soil health network for farmers, advisors, educators, and researchers. The network promoted and exchanged practical knowledge on four best practices for controlling soil-borne diseases and nematodes. The project also developed an open-access database and a decision-support tool with information on various soil-borne diseases and nematodes affecting vegetables, arable crops, and cover crops. This tool helps farmers and advisors develop healthy crop rotations and implement innovative control strategies. With Best4Soil information, farmers can innovate their soil health management strategies. All information is published in 22 EU languages and is freely accessible to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge from research to practice. Best4Soil organized more than 140 workshops and created 52 communities of practice (CoPs) in 10 different countries to share knowledge and find solutions to regional soil health problems. Best4Soil deployed local facilitators to develop the soil health network, organized training and project promotion, facilitated the creation of communities of practice, and collected feedback from practitioners. For full information, visit the project website: www.Best4Soil.eu.
The website also features interactive Decision Support Tools, which offer tailored information for farmers. The website will be available for at least another five years, but the consortium aims to maintain its availability and databases well beyond this period. Conclusions: Soil health is and will continue to be an important topic in the coming years. Best4Soil collected information on the biological component of soil health. The "practice-ready" information collected in Best4Soil is highly valued by target groups and is shared with a large number of farmers, advisors, researchers, educators, and people working in the supply chain. The results of Best4Soil are relevant to achieving the objectives of the European Soil Health Strategy.
Healthy soils are of great importance for the future of European agricultural and horticultural production. Especially in intensive production systems, soil-borne diseases are a major factor negatively impacting soil health. Recently developed best practices and good crop rotations make it possible to maintain, improve, or restore soil health in Europe. The BEST4SOIL project will build a community of practice network across Europe, interconnecting farmers, advisors, educators, and researchers. Through this network, practice-ready knowledge will be promoted on four best practices for soil-borne disease control (compost/organic amendments; green manures/cover crops; anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD); and (bio)solarization). Open-access databases with information on the variety of pathogens affecting host plants will help practitioners create appropriate crop rotations and innovative control strategies.
As an innovative tool, BEST4SOIL will provide video tutorials (on YouTube), easily understandable even for producers with limited language skills. Videos, databases, and fact sheets are available in 22 official EU languages to facilitate innovation management for practitioners across Europe. The information will be freely accessible and highly understandable to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge from research to practice. BEST4SOIL will deploy local facilitators to establish a network with active communities of practice resulting in intensive knowledge exchange. The BEST4SOIL consortium includes advisors, breeders, communicators, educators, producers, and researchers from eight European countries. Together with facilitators in at least twelve other countries, the network will connect a significant portion of European producers, advisors, and educators—the key stakeholders of BEST4SOIL.
Farmers can be stewards of the soil, as they can protect and preserve it. An EU-supported network has worked hard to make it easy for farmers to access practical information in their own language on how to improve soil health and why it is in their best interest to do so. Farmers' incomes depend heavily on the condition of their land, and intensive production systems make soil health a growing concern across Europe. However, it can be difficult to obtain information on specific problems affecting soils and how to address them. To close this gap, the EU-funded BEST4SOIL (Boosting 4 BEST practices for SOIL health in Europe) project has created a network to share knowledge on soil health. It focuses on good practices for maintaining healthy and fertile soils and for reducing the spread of soil-borne diseases and nematodes, tiny roundworms that feed on plant roots. "An international team of scientists has compiled a wealth of information for practical use. BEST4SOIL makes this knowledge available through videos, fact sheets, databases, and a decision-support tool," says Harm Brinks, BEST4SOIL coordinator and project manager at Delphy, the Dutch agricultural and horticultural consultancy hosting the project.
Making the Right Decisions The decision support tool is a web interface where farmers and advisors can enter information about location, soil, crop type, and pathogen or nematode types to generate a query. Based on this query, the system will search its databases to identify the most promising strategies. “It can be used as a risk analysis tool to create effective crop rotations and select measures to restore soil health or prevent problems,” explains Brinks. Crop rotation is one of the most efficient techniques for controlling soil-borne diseases and pests. To maximize its impact, farmers must carefully adjust the system to local conditions. BEST4SOIL can help them evaluate which crops to plant in which order and how best to combine the rotation with other management practices.
Best Practices in the Field The project focuses on four key practices for soil health: green manures, compost, anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD), and (bio)solarization. “Compost and green manure crops add organic matter to the soil: they are an important source of micronutrients, necessary for soil fertility and biodiversity,” adds Brinks. ASD and (bio)solarization, on the other hand, help combat diseases and parasites: “Many soils are contaminated with nematodes and pathogens that harm crop yield and quality. Biological control measures help restore soil health by eliminating infestations.” Information and advice on how to use these practices are shared on the website through videos and fact sheets. All online resources, including database content, are available in 22 EU languages. Connecting Professionals The web platform is just one of the channels through which the BEST4SOIL network connects with farmers. Facilitators from 19 EU countries and the UK organize local activities such as meetings, conferences, and workshops that offer training opportunities and allow participants to connect and exchange experiences. Ultimately, the project seeks to build a community of practice connecting farmers, advisors, educators, and researchers from across Europe. The team hopes to keep the network active after the project ends. "The project partners guarantee that all information will remain available for at least five years. But we are working on a plan to keep it online for much longer," Brinks notes. Together with her colleagues, she is exploring different options, including integrating some of the tools into an agricultural knowledge database currently being developed with support from Horizon 2020.
While soil health is a concern for many, we also observed that knowledge about specific issues and access to information are limited in many countries. Best4Soil provides such information, and best practices, databases, and decision-support tools can help solve problems in practice, as confirmed by the feedback received during the project. Best4Soil results are widely shared in Europe and are used by a growing number of farmers and advisors. Educational institutions use Best4Soil information to train future farmers. Implementing Best4Soil best practices and using the decision-support tools will have a positive impact on soil health in Europe, reduce the impact of soil-borne diseases on crop yield and quality, and decrease the use of chemical disinfectants. The videos, fact sheets, and decision-support tools remain available and are free to use. In fact, we see that the videos continue to be viewed on YouTube and that the decision-support tools continue to be used. Best4Soil results are shared with EUFRAS (European Forum for Agricultural and Rural Advisory Services). EFRAS has 47 members in 28 countries, representing a large number of advisors working in the crop and open field sectors who can and will use Best4Soil results in their future work with farmers.
- DELPHY BV (DELPHY)
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