Five regeneration centers in France, Greece and Spain pave the way for innovation in land management and sustainable business strategies.
The GOV4ALL Project officially launched on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, marking another step towards improving soil health in the European Union. The four-and-a-half year project, funded by the EU under the Soil Mission, will focus on inspiring rural communities to engage in the identification, testing and dissemination of regenerative soil management practices and the creation of sustainable and long-lasting innovation hubs. It will operate under the title: "Governance and business models for living laboratories: rural regeneration centers to address soil health challenges in the Mediterranean region."
GOV4ALL has established five agro-innovation centers: two in Greece, two in Spain and one in France. These living laboratories will demonstrate that co-created systemic changes in land management at the regional level are possible. They will serve as hubs for the project's participatory, bottom-up approach, which places farmers and rural communities at the center of efforts to protect and restore Europe's soils.
"Our ambition is to put farmers at the center of the innovation process, leveraging their vast knowledge to generate sustainable solutions that are beneficial for people and the planet." Tristano Bacchetti De Gregoris, GOV4ALL Coordinator.
A core mission of GOV4ALL is to drive change by fostering connections between rural communities and local, national and international innovation ecosystems, promoting leadership and entrepreneurship with viable and lasting business models. The project, coordinated by the Spanish company SAE Innova (www.sae-innova.com), will demonstrate how rural development and regenerative land management can go hand in hand.
Tristano Bacchetti De Gregoris, coordinator of the GOV4ALL Project and founder of SAE Innova, said, "Our ambition is to put farmers at the center of the innovation process, leveraging their vast knowledge to generate sustainable solutions that are beneficial for people and the planet.
"Not only do we need to better understand our soil to meet the ambitious targets set by the EU Soil Mission, but we also need to ensure that validated management practices are shared among stakeholders. The project also seeks to strengthen connections between rural communities and decision makers at regional, national and international levels. GOV4ALL will validate soil practices and business models to ensure that rural communities are empowered to foster their own development while leading the protection and regeneration of our soils."
The GOV4ALL consortium consists of 35 partners from Austria, Greece, France, Spain and the Netherlands, and one associate partner from Switzerland. The project is funded under the EU Mission Soil Pact for Europe (Mission Soil). The Mission focuses on protecting and restoring soil and promoting sustainable management practices in urban and rural areas, leading the transition to healthy soil by 2030.
It is estimated that 60-70% of soil systems in the EU are degraded due to unsustainable management and one of the main challenges is to identify practices for soil regeneration that are effective, economically viable, demonstrate yield benefits and, above all, are simple to implement. The Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The region is warming 20% faster than the global average and population growth will further increase pressure on water and food supplies.
GOV4ALL is an EU-funded Soil Mission project. Coordinated by SAE Innova, it will deploy a bottom-up participatory approach that will lead to the creation of five agro-innovation centers spread across France, Greece and Spain. The project will connect farmers, scientists, NGOs, politicians and the public towards a vision of an agricultural system that can generate income for rural communities while protecting natural resources, with a focus on soil regeneration.
CIDE Communication
