MAIA Webinar: Climate Change and Agriculture (III)- Agroforestry

Recording

About the Webinar

Join us on Friday 8th of September on Part II Climate Change and Agriculture with the subtopic Agroforestry featuring EU projects HoliSoils, Reforest and AGFORWARD

Registration link

Please click the link below to register:
https://ait-meetings.my.webex.com/weblink/register/raf06c83d47fd591ae1900f216173eda3

Featuring Projects

1. HoliSoils Holistic management practices, modelling and monitoring for European forest soil

• Budget: € 10 035 592,50
• Funding call: SOCIETAL CHALLENGES – Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy
• Project duration: 1 May 2021- 31 October 2025
• Partners: 20
• Cordis link

Soils are increasingly recognised to have an important role, both for human wellbeing and for the global climate, with clear benefits for people and the planet in the sustainable transformation of land management to practices that reduce soil degradation, mitigate erosion, and maintain or restore soil organic carbon, nutrients, and soil water. Yet there are significant knowledge gaps on forest soil processes and soil monitoring is not sufficiently harmonised, which limits the EU’s ability to maintain soil-related ecosystem services and to reach climate policy targets. HoliSoils (Holistic management practices, modelling and monitoring for European Forest Soils) tackles these gaps in knowledge and aims to harmonise available soil monitoring information to support decision making towards climate and sustainability goals. HoliSoils identifies and tests novel soil management practices aiming to mitigate climate change and sustain provision of various ecosystem services essential for human livelihoods and wellbeing.

HoliSoils applies a collaborative multi-actor approach to maximise applicability and impact. The multidisciplinary consortium includes leading expertise on soil analysis and databases, development of advanced analytical techniques, complex system modelling, digital soil mapping, soil ecology, disturbance ecology, forest and GHG inventories, social sciences, and communications. HoliSoils engages actively with its diverse stakeholders, including forest owners and managers, industry actors, forest extension services, forest and soils researchers, climate policy support and GHG inventory experts, and policymakers.

2. Reforest Agroforestry at the forefront of farming sustainability in multifunctional landscapes in Europe

• Budget: € 3 333 691,25
• Funding call: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
• Project duration: 1 July 2022 – 30 June 2026
• Partners: 13 
• Cordis link 

ReForest: Agroforestry at the forefront of farming sustainability in multifunctional landscapes in Europe is a HE project aiming to place agroforestry at the forefront of sustainable farming within multifunctional landscapes across Europe. Its mission is to highlight the advantages of agroforestry as a holistic approach that intertwines food production with ecological preservation. Built on principles of innovation and knowledge exchange, ReForest will suggest solutions to empower European farmers to achieve robust food production, efficient carbon capture, and biodiversity enhancement.

A primary strategic aim is to magnify the adoption of agroforestry across Europe, ensuring food production’s sustainability by emphasising the intrinsic value of carbon and biodiversity in farming business models and providing political recommendations based on real-world data. To achieve this, the project will implement an open science method across 7 Living Labs in Europe, showcasing agroforestry’s tangible ecological, economic, and social benefits.

3.AGFORWARD 

• Budget: € 8 009 806,24
• Funding call: Specific Programme “Cooperation”: Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology
• Project duration: 1 January 2014- 31 December 2017
• Partners: 27
• Cordis link

AGFORWARD was a four-year project (2014-2018), co-funded by the European Union, which promoted “AGroFORestry practices that Will Advance Rural Development in Europe”.  The project involved 26 organisations and quantified the extent of agroforestry in Europe. The project worked with over 800 farmers and other stakeholders working together to identify and develop agroforestry prac­tices that provide saleable products, profits, and an enhanced environment. The project also including modelling work at farm and landscape scales and produced policy recommendations to support agroforestry.  The project website: www.agforward.eu is still active.

Featuring Speakers

1. Mäkipää Raisa Research professor at Natural Resources Institute Finland presenting the EU project HoliSoils
Raisa Mäkipää works as a research professor focusing on climate change, biodiversity, C cycling and sustainable use of natural resources. As an experienced forest ecologist and soil scientist, Raisa sees the importance of research work even when taking a walk in a forest. Many may admire the healthy-looking forest, but Raisa also sees signs, for example, that much of the forest’s biodiversity has been lost. 

2. Martin Lukáč presenting EU project Reforest
Martin Lukáč is a Professor of Ecosystem Science, with more than 15 years of experience in research on plant physiology, ecology of forest and agricultural ecosystems, agroforestry and soil science. His main area of expertise is terrestrial ecosystem productivity and functioning, role of diversity in ecosystem stability, carbon cycling and storage in ecosystems, mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Currently he is involved in a number of UK and EU research and science communication projects, as well as under- and postgraduate teaching and outreach. He has a strong track record of publishing research outcomes, with more than 80 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals, two books on soil ecology and numerous book chapters. He has supervised 13 PhD students to completion and currently supervises 3 PhD students as the main or second supervisor. He is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and of the Institute of Professional Soil Scientists.

3. Paul Burgess Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Agroforestry
Paul Burgess is Professor of Sustainable Agriculture and Agroforestry at Cranfield University, a postgraduate-only university situated about one hour north of London in the United Kingdom.  After completing a BSc in Agrculture, and MSc in Land and Water Management, he completed his PhD on tea agronomy in East Africa.  His current research is improving the agronomic, environmental, and economic sustainability of agriculture with a particular focus on agroforestry, perennial cropping systems, and the use of bio-economic models.  He co-ordinated the EU sponsored project AGFORWARD from 2014 to 2018, and is currently a member of the AGROMIX and DigitAG agroforestry projects.