PREPSOIL

Mission Soil is a major initiative for soil health in the EU, aiming to improve the soil health of agricultural, forestry, industrial, urban and natural soils. The main objective of the PREPSOIL project is to promote the implementation of Mission Soil.

This is done on the one hand by creating arenas for communication between key soil actors from different sectors (e.g. Living Labs projects) and building awareness of soil health in society in general, and on the other hand by supporting specific processes of the mission by assessing the state of soils in selected European regions, exploring soil health indicators, Earth Observation and citizen science for use in soil monitoring, and by developing business models for Living Labs projects (projects that serve as the main tool for implementing the Mission).

NIBIO is leading the work of identifying and documenting groups of stakeholders with a commitment to soil health around Europe - so-called ‘Communites of Practice’. This involves, among other things, video interviews with representatives of more than 80 groups of farmers, foresters and gardeners around Europe. NIBIO is also involved in mapping Living Labs and Lighthouses for Soil Health, and in giving visibility to people’s commitment to soil as part of the preparations for the implementation of Mission Soil. See links to the left to watch films from Norway.

Another form of groups engaged in PREPSOIL are the so-called ‘National hubs’. These are networks of key stakeholders at national level that were formed across the twenty-four participating countries in the EJP SOIL project, through which they have met to discuss the sustainable use of agricultural land in their countries and to provide input on their national situations to the research roadmap that has been developed in EJP SOIL. Some of these networks have also provided input to national processes. NIBIO led the work of following up these networks in EJP SOIL, and is also in contact with them through PREPSOIL. In order to implement Mission Soil at the national level, the European Commission envisages networks of national key stakeholders related to agricultural soil, forestry soil, industrial soil, (peri)urban soil and natural soil that can have an advisory function related to the development of policies connected to soil - so-called ‘Mirror Groups’. The European Commission recommends building on existing networks when forming such groups, and considers the national networks built in the EJP SOIL project (‘EJP SOIL National hubs’) as a suitable starting point to build on. In PREPSOIL, NIBIO is collaborating with Aarhus University to provide information to countries involved in PREPSOIL and Mission Soil about what it takes to form Mirror Groups.

NIBIO has also mapped soil needs in Trøndelag, which is one of 20 selected regions in PREPSOIL.