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.
A key aspect of the meeting will be to discuss the European Soil Partnership (ESP) Implementation Plan 2017-2020 recently approved by the FAO. The working group attending the meeting are part of Pillar 2 of the ESP which was established to create an action plan for the development of measures, programmes and initiatives to raise awareness of the importance of soil across Europe.
This year’s workshop is called ‘Giving Soils a Voice 2017’ and Jane was invited to present on 29th September on ‘Soil education and advisory services’. Jane will drawing on her research into sustainable soil management practices and advisory services in three major EU funded soil related projects; SmartSoil, Recare and SOilcare.
Jane’s research has included research into soil threats in different bio-physical and socio-economic environments across Europe; improvement of soil carbon management to address the degradation trend of European agricultural soils; and sustainable crop management strategies to maintain or increase soil fertility.
Jane’s presentation will also link to her research an evaluation of the Soil Association’s Innovative Farmers programme, which fosters farmer learning and experimentation and to AgriDemo which aims to deepen understanding of effective on farm demonstration activities.
The meeting brings together people who have a common aim of raising awareness of the importance of soil, including some of CCRI’s collaborating colleagues from EU funded soil projects.
