Our Activites

LILAS4SOILS will establish 5 carbon farming Living Labs (LL), involving 85-100 demo sites,  across Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, and Israel.  The LLs aim to co-develop and implement Carbon Farming Practices through a participatory approach, engaging stakeholders from the Quintuple Helix of Innovation. This collaborative effort will foster locally adapted solutions for sustainable agriculture and carbon sequestration in the region.
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The Living Labs will follow protocols based on European Networks of Living Labs guidelines and lessons from previous projects. They will cover diverse agricultural land uses in the six targeted Mediterranean countries. Co-creation activities and dedicated workshops with representatives of the regional Quintuple Helix of Innovation (QHI) will ensure a participatory approach of co-design, co-development, and co-implementation of locally adapted solutions. QHI is a multi-actor approach which includes researchers, farmers (landowners/managers), and representatives of the agri-food industry, regional administrations and civil society.This inclusive approach ensures that the developed carbon farming practices are tailored to local needs and conditions, promoting wider adoption and long-term sustainability.

LILAS4SOILS will establish carbon farming baselines at demo sites and monitor CFP impacts using a harmonized protocol. The project will assess changes in soil organic carbon, water capacity, and environmental co-benefits over time. Innovative soil monitoring technologies will be tested to overcome conventional limitations. Modelling will simulate carbon sequestration potential and soil emissions. All data will be shared with the European Union Soil Observatory, ensuring open access and sustainability of project results.
The project employs a FSTP mechanism to identify and test innovative soil monitoring technologies, building on results from related projects like MRV4SOC, MARVIC, and AI4SOILHEALTH. LILAS4SOILS will model carbon sequestration dynamics, NH4 and N2O soil emissions, and NO3 leaching. The consortium's expertise ensures accurate reporting and verification. Data generated will complement previous initiatives like CarboSeq – EJP SOIL, contributing to the EC Joint Research Centre's efforts in soil monitoring and research.

Farmers will be involved from the beginning of the project as CFPs landowners or managers of the demo-sites, and active participants in workshops and other LL activities. We will develop easy and accessible materials (i.e., practice abstracts, CFP guidelines, video tutorials) to facilitate carbon farming uptake among farmers, landowners/managers and other stakeholders. Knowledge transfer and training workshops, as well as demonstration activities within lighthouses and demo-sites, are also envisaged to facilitate CFPs uptake. We will assess the potential for transferability and replicability of the developed CFPs to other regions in EU. Furthermore, political authorities, along with farmers and LL stakeholders, will help to identify challenges that regional stakeholders are facing. These challenges will inform the development of policy recommendations that will be presented to national and regional authorities in each LL during dedicated policy workshops. LILAS4SOILS also includes a specific task to collaborate with EU initiatives and networks such as PREPSOIL, NBSSOIL and CREDIBLE projects, or the EJP SOIL, EIP-AGRI operational groups, the ‘EU partnership on accelerating farming systems transition: Agroecology LLs and research infrastructures’, and new projects funded under this call, including the ‘Soil Living Lab Support Structure’ (SOILL), or the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD) thematic group on Carbon Farming. EITFOOD Regenerative Agriculture Working group will directly participate in LILAS4SOILS through the project coordinator. LILAS4SOILS will be in close contact with the JRC contributing with research data on soil monitoring for the EUSO.

LILAS4SOILS will propose long-term sustainability strategies and business plans to ensure continuity of the LLs in the regions once the project is concluded and define a route toward a long-term collaboration with the EUSO. Continuity of LL activities such as co-creation, implementation of CFPs, testing of new technologies and measuring impacts on soils (ideally to be measured every 4 years after the end of the project, to gather reliable data on carbon sequestration and environmental co-benefits of the CFPs) will be sought by exploring regional stakeholder interested in LL exploitation, establishing agreements with regional or national authorities to maintain the LL, as well as finding funding mechanisms and optimal funding mix. Also, green business models for carbon farming will be developed based on the agroecological and economic (e.g., savings in soil inputs, carbon credits markets) benefits that farmers will directly experience by switching to this type of agriculture. A commercial case study will exemplify how CFPs can be applied to commercial settings. Exploitation pathways will closely follow the development of the new European carbon removal certification scheme. 

This Work Package will be dedicated to developing and implementing a strategic Communication and Dissemination (C&D) plan and create a strong brand identity; to carry out C&D activities to increase project awareness; and to monitor stakeholder engagement in all the Living Labs.

This Work Package will be dedicated to ensuring the sustainable project implementation in line with the timetable, resources, objectives and success indicators; to monitor, mitigate and manage potential risks; to ensure compliance with data and ethics requirements; and, to perform and promote a culture of sustainability in the day-to day running of the project.