Project

Soil conservation and policy measures: the case studies

Code
41M09108
Duration
01 January 2008 → 30 June 2008
Funding
European funding: various
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Soil sciences, challenges and pollution
  • Agricultural and food sciences
    • Agriculture, land and farm management
Keywords
soil conservation
 
Project description

There is a lack of knowledge about soil conservation practices in agriculture and little
understanding of how farmers can be encouraged through appropriate policy measures to adopt soil conservation practices. The EU funded project “Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation” (SoCo) is aiming to fill this gap. The research was guided by a framework for policy and institutional analysis, using literature and document analyses as well as
a stakeholder survey and expert interviews to investigate soil conservation in eight case studies across Europe. The paper briefly describes the case study areas and presents preliminary findings. The findings highlight i) the need to design policies that target the existing soil threats; ii) the need for good communication and cooperation both between agricultural and environmental authorities as well as between governmental and non-
governmental stakeholders; iii) the necessary mix of mandatory and incentive instruments; and iv) the lack of data to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of policies and soil conservation practices.