TY - JOUR

T1 - Farmers' perception of soil health

T2 - The use of quality data and its implication for farm management

AU - Falcão, Raquel N. R.

AU - Vrana, Michal

AU - Hudek, Csilla

AU - Pittarello, Marco

AU - Zavattaro, Laura

AU - Moretti, Barbara

AU - Strauss, Peter

AU - Liebhard, Gunter

AU - Li, Yangyang

AU - Zhang, Xiaoping

AU - Bauer, Miroslav

AU - Dostál, Tomáš

AU - Gomez, José A.

AU - Benavente‐Ferraces, Iria

AU - García‐Gil, Juan C.

AU - Plaza, César

AU - Guzmán, Gema

AU - Lopez, Maria Llanos

AU - Pirkó, Bela

AU - Bakacsi, Zsofia

AU - Nokolov, Dimitre

AU - Krása, Josef

PY - 2024/1/31

Y1 - 2024/1/31

N2 - Preventing and reversing soil degradation is essential to maintaining the ecosystem services provided by soils and guaranteeing food security. In addition to the scientific community, it is critical to engage multiple stakeholders to assess the degree of soil degradation and mitigation strategies' impact and meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and other national and international goals. A semi‐structured questionnaire was distributed across countries participating in the EU Horizon‐2020 “Transforming Unsustainable management of soils in key agricultural systems in E.U. and China. Developing an integrated platform of alternatives to reverse soil degradation (TUdi).” Using farmers' associations and educational institutions as an intermediate to distribute the questionnaires was an effective strategy for gathering a high number of responses. Results from 456 responses to the questionnaire showed that farm country, size, type of agriculture, and educational level of farm managers were significantly associated with the farmers' perception of soil degradation issues. Farm size and type of agriculture were also correlated with applying a nutrient management plan. The implications of the results for soil conservation measures are discussed. Additionally, we highlight the potential of projects such as TUdi for creating collaboration networks to drive widespread adoption by farmers of technologies to reverse the degradation of agricultural soils.

AB - Preventing and reversing soil degradation is essential to maintaining the ecosystem services provided by soils and guaranteeing food security. In addition to the scientific community, it is critical to engage multiple stakeholders to assess the degree of soil degradation and mitigation strategies' impact and meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, and other national and international goals. A semi‐structured questionnaire was distributed across countries participating in the EU Horizon‐2020 “Transforming Unsustainable management of soils in key agricultural systems in E.U. and China. Developing an integrated platform of alternatives to reverse soil degradation (TUdi).” Using farmers' associations and educational institutions as an intermediate to distribute the questionnaires was an effective strategy for gathering a high number of responses. Results from 456 responses to the questionnaire showed that farm country, size, type of agriculture, and educational level of farm managers were significantly associated with the farmers' perception of soil degradation issues. Farm size and type of agriculture were also correlated with applying a nutrient management plan. The implications of the results for soil conservation measures are discussed. Additionally, we highlight the potential of projects such as TUdi for creating collaboration networks to drive widespread adoption by farmers of technologies to reverse the degradation of agricultural soils.

KW - conservation agriculture

KW - soil degradation

KW - questionnaire

KW - Europe

KW - agricultural stakeholders

U2 - 10.1111/sum.13023

DO - 10.1111/sum.13023

M3 - Journal article

VL - 40

JO - Soil Use and Management

JF - Soil Use and Management

SN - 0266-0032

IS - 1

M1 - e13023

ER -