Fostering Carbon Farming Practices through Living Labs in the Mediterranean & Southern EU for the healthy future of European soils
- Project start: 1st September 2024
- Project end: 1st September 2029
- Principal investigator: Olatz Unamunzaga
- Funder: Funded by the European Union
- Program: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-09: Carbon farming in living labs
- Reference: Grant no. 101157414), HEU Mission Soils
- Acronym: LILAS4SOILS
- Total budget: 11,609,422.15 euros (NEIKER: 590,200.13 euros)
- Percentage financed: 100%
- Partners: EIT Food South, Agrarian Technological Institute of Castilla y León, Food4Sustainability, Agri Sud Ouest Innovation, Universita Cattolica Del Sacro Cuore, Agricultural University of Athens, Galilee Research Institute, NEIKER, CarbonChange, BGI, Climate Farmers, DANONE, CSIC, INIAV , Perrotis College, Agrarias de Castilla y León, BIOSPHERES, Confagricoltura Veneto, ETHEAS, GRANOT, ERSAF, RoCG, Upper Galilee Regional Council and European Conservation Agriculture Federation
- Web: www.lilas4soils.eu
General objetive:
: The general objective of LILAS4SOILS is to foster the potential of Carbon Farming in the Mediterranean and Southern EU region and catalyse the transformation of the European agricultural sector towards a healthy soil & zero-emission system, doing so via participatory R&I approach, while putting primary producers at the forefront of sustainable practices. To achieve this objective, LILAS4SOILS will engage a wide range of agriculture stakeholders to co-create and implement Carbon Farming Practices (CFPs) based on regional farms realities.
Specific objectives:
- The co-creation processes will be done through 5 Living Labs (LLs) located in 6 different countries (see Figure 3). These CFPs will be demonstrated in 85-100 demo-sites(up to 20 per LL), across a range of farming systems (currently working on conventional or organic farming) and different pedoclimatic zones that are being strongly affected by climate change effects. CFPs to be applied are mainly focused on 1) peatland management, 2) agroforestry, 3) maintaining and enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC), 4) livestock and manure management, and 5) nutrient, pesticides and fertilizers management. Active engagement of CFPs end users (farmers, agri-food companies) will ensure their uptake and large-scale impacts in the long term. The CFPs’ carbon sequestration potential, dynamics and effect on soil’s composition (including co-benefits) will be assessed using state-of-the-art and innovative Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) technologies to contribute to the standardisation of methods to provide a clear and reliable certification framework for carbon farming and the future carbon credits market. Also, a Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) mechanism will be put in place to 1) increase the number of farmers involved in LLs and CFPs implementation, 2) test innovative monitoring technologies that overcome cost-efficiency limitations of conventional measurement methods.
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