Project website: http://soilcare-project.eu/
View this project on the EU CORDIS website
Twitter: @SoilCare_eu
European crop production is facing a growing challenge to remain competitive, while at the same time reducing negative environmental impacts. Currently, production levels in some cropping systems are maintained by increased inputs, such as fertiliser and pesticides, and more advanced technology, which masks losses in productivity due to reduced soil quality. Such increased use of agricultural inputs may reduce profitability due to their costs, while also negatively affecting the environment.
The quality of agricultural land is also threatened by human action, leading to, often subtle and gradual, physical, chemical and biological degradation of the soil. This includes soil threats such as erosion, compaction, salinization, soil pollution, loss of organic matter and loss of soil biodiversity. Soil improvement is necessary to break the negative spiral of degradation, increased inputs, increased costs and damage to the environment.
Therefore, more sustainable crop management strategies are needed to maintain or increase soil fertility. Inappropriate soil and water management and the overuse of external inputs in intensive crop production systems contribute significantly to ground water and surface water pollution, GHGs emissions, the build-up in soil contaminants, such as heavy metals and organic pollutants. Better soil management and optimisation of fertilisers and water are of paramount importance for conciliating the necessary competitiveness and the long-term sustainability of the entire intensive crop production sector in Europe.
In order to identify and evaluate promising soil-improving crop systems and agronomic techniques that will increase the profitability and sustainability of agriculture across Europe, the EU has funded research under its Horizon 2020 programme for a project called SoilCare (SoilCare for profitable and sustainable crop production in Europe).
The funding of £287,400 was secured in December 2015 and the CCRI is one of 28 collaborating partners, led by Alterra, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands. The project started on 1st March 2016 and will continue for 5 years.
The CCRI is the Work Package Leader for Dissemination and Communication in the project with the aim of raising awareness of soil related issues and ensuring that findings and practices from the project are disseminated and communicated widely and integrated into existing agricultural and advisory systems.
Jane Mills and Dr Julie Ingram will be working on the project and their work will focus particularly on disseminating and communicating the research findings from the 16 study sites and ensuring effective knowledge exchange between the project and farmers.
Both Jane and Julie have also been working on other EU soil related projects – RECARE and Smartsoil.
UPDATES
14-18 March, 2016 - First Project Meeting in Leuven, Belguim
Jane Mills and Julie Ingram attended the SoilCare project kick-off meeting in Leuven, Belgium from 14-18 March, 2016.
The meeting was hosted by our Belgian colleagues of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. More than 60 scientists representing all 28 partners in the project took part in the meeting.

During the week-long meeting, time was spent making detailed plans for the first 1.5 years of the project. Jane Mills presented plans for the dissemination work packages, including plans for a dedicated dissemination website. Jane and Julie also led a training session for study sites partners covering different types of knowledge exchange and dissemination techniques to be adopted throughout the project. Time was also spent during the week getting to know project partners better, something that is essential in such a large, international project. On Thursday, an excursion took place to several locations in the Belgian study site looking at different soil-improving cropping systems.
13th-16th, March 2017 - 2nd SoilCare project plenary meeting in Chania, Crete
Jane Mills and Julie Ingram attended the 2nd SoilCare project plenary meeting in Chania, Crete from 13th-16th March.
The aim of EU-funded H2020 SoilCare project is to identify, evaluate and promote promising soil-improving cropping systems and agronomic techniques that increase both the profitability and sustainability of agriculture in Europe. The CCRI is one of 28 collaborating partners, led by Alterra, University of Wageningen, Netherlands.
The meeting was hosted by SoilCare partners from the Technical University of Crete and was held in the Grand Arsenal on the Old Venetian harbour of Chania.
The first day was spent discussing project progress over the last year. Jane Mills presented details of the progress made with dissemination activities throughout the year. During the second day Jane provided hands-on training to the study site partners on how to edit and upload photos and videos to their own study site webpages to enable them to communicate with their stakeholders, such as farmers and policy-makers, in their own language. Non-English speakers are often excluded from EU project websites and dissemination outputs and Jane is keen to ensure this does not occur in the SoilCare project.

A key part of the week was to clarify the definition of soil-improving cropping systems and to identify the types of soil-improving cropping systems that the researchers from the 16 study sites might select with their stakeholders for trialling.
One day was spent visiting two of the SoilCare study site areas in Crete, the Koufos and Biolea Estate plots. In the Koufos area, orange cultivation is a major crop, but due to market competition producer prices have dropped leaving little or no profit. Recently, avocados have been proposed as a sustainable alternative, although soil erosion rates have not been measured. We were shown trials where the researchers have been comparing the erosion rates as well as other soil quality parameters between a field that has remained an orange grove for 45 years and one that was converted to an avocado farm 20 years ago. We experienced the strange contrast of standing in orange groves against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains.
The second plot was located on the Biolea Estate that produces olive oil using traditional stone-ground processing methods. Olive trees are the most popular cultivation in Crete, covering 64% of the arable land and representing 86% of the tree plantations on the island. Conventional practices often lead to on-site and off-site environmental problems, such as soil erosion. In older olive grove, tillage erosion is present in areas where mechanical equipment is being used, reaching losses of up to 50 cm during the last 40 years. The researchers are comparing soil erosion rates between two 24-year old fields with loam soil that have not been tilled in the last 7 years. One will service as a control and the other will be tilled in April 2017.
Jane and Julie left Crete with much accomplished and plans made for the coming year.

View this project on the EU CORDIS website
Twitter: @SoilCare_eu
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research and innovation grant agreement no 633814.
Project updates and activities
World Soil Day 2019 – Can farmers achieve Win: Win by improving their soil and increasing profitability?

Today (5th December) is World Soil Day – a day to celebrate and raise awareness on the importance of our soils.
Can farmers improve their soil whilst increasing their profitability? This is a question that has been puzzling scientists on the SoilCare research project for the last four years.
Researchers from CCRI contribute to and attend Wageningen Soil Conference

CCRI researcher Julie Ingram was joined by PhD Kamilla Skaalsveen last week at the Wageningen Soil Conference in the Netherlands.
SoilCare – Testing cropping systems that improve soil and profitability

As the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation uses World Soil Day to raise awareness about soil health, it may come as little surprise to find out that soil doesn’t just impact our food supplies, it also helps clean water and lower risks of floods and droughts. More surprising is the SoilCare team’s efforts to treat profitability for farmers as a central priority – a consideration many research projects on environmental health overlook.
Jane Mills attends SoilCare project meeting in Brussels

Jane Mills attended a Work Package leaders meeting for the SoilCare project at the Milieu offices in Brussels on 14th and 15th November.
SoilCare project goes to Legoland

Jane Mills and Julie Ingram attended the 3rd plenary meeting of the SoilCare project between 28th May and 1st June at the Legoland Conference Centre in Billund, Denmark, hosted by two SoilCare partners, AgroIntelli and Aarhus University.
Jane Mills ‘expert’ at EU workshop

Jane Mills was an invited expert at the EU workshop “Interactive innovation in action – Multi-actor project learning from each other” on 8th March, which was run by the agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-Agri) in Brussels.
Jane Mills draws from RECARE and SoilCare research at BonaRes conference

Jane Mills has been at the BonaRes Conference in Berlin this week (26-28th February) where she made a presentation based on research under the EU funded RECARE and Soilcare projects.
Jane Mills presents RECARE and SoilCare research at “Where for UK soil after Brexit” conference

On 14th February 2018, Jane Mills attended the “Where for UK soil after Brexit?” conference at the Soil Research Centre, Reading University, where she presented posters on the RECARE and SoilCare projects, on which she has been working.
MEDIA RELEASE – Caring for the Brown Planet

Word Soil Day 2017 (5th December) captures the essence of the EU-funded project, SoilCare, which is identifying ways in which soil quality can be improved through cropping systems and techniques, benefiting both the profitability of farms and the environment.
Happy World Soil Day!

Today is World Soil Day, when the attention of the world is focussed on one of our most important natural resources – soil. World Soil Day is held annually on 5th December to highlight the importance of soil on Earth, which we need for basic survival – food and energy.
Soils given a voice in Bratislava

Jane Mills is taking part in the fifth European Network of Soil Awareness – Joint Research Centre (ENSA-JRC) meeting in Bratislava on 28th – 29th September. The workshop is called ‘Giving Soils a Voice 2017’.
CCRI team attend SoilCare meeting in Crete

Jane Mills and Julie Ingram attended the 2nd SoilCare project plenary meeting in Chania, Crete from 13th-16th March.
Jane Mills talks about the importance of soil on BBC Radio Gloucestershire

Jane Mills talks to Faye Hatcher on BBC Radio Gloucestershire about the importance of soil and how it is often forgotten and undervalued as a global resource
Celebrating World Soil Day!

5th December, is World Soil Day – the one day in the year that the United Nations asks us all to think about the role of soil in our daily lives. The CCRI has been collaborating on two major EU funded projects, SoilCare and RECARE, to investigate how soil quality can be improved.
All about soil!

Soil is always at the forefront of Jane Mills’ research and this coming week it is indeed all about soil as she attends various workshops and meetings around Europe to discuss soil issues.
Soil – the forgotten component essential to human life

CCRI has welcomed the recent report from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee on Soil Health, which states that soil is often overlooked as an essential component to human life. Read Jane Mills’ blog about CCRI’s work in the challenge to address soil degradation.
New Horizon 2020 project begins

CCRI was recently successful in securing around £287,400 EU Horizon 2020 funding as part of a project called SoilCare (SoilCare for profitable and sustainable crop production in Europe). SoilCare aims to identify and evaluate site-specific, soil-improving cropping systems and agronomic techniques that have positive impacts on profitability and sustainability in Europe.