Soil Health Benchmarks

The Soil Health and Food (SH&F) mission board has set the goal to have 75% of European soils healthy or significantly improved by 2030. This is in line with other important European initiatives such as the Green Deal and EU Farm-to-Fork Strategy, as well as with preparations for a new EU law on the protection of Soil Health that aims to protect soils on the same legal basis as air and water. Meanwhile, the private sector too, is proposing explicit visions of sustainable food systems, such as the 1000 landscapes for 1 billion people (1000 landscapes, 2022), the 100-million farmers platform of the World Economic Forum (World Economic Forum, 2022), and the Regen10 initiative of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 2022).

Measuring the success of these public and private initiatives through the harmonized monitoring of European soils is an essential, but enormously complex task. It requires coherent yet context-specific monitoring on multiple scales for multiple land uses across all EU member states.

To address these challenges, BENCHMARKS collaborates with stakeholders in 29 European case studies to co-develop and evaluate a multi-scale and multi-user-focused monitoring framework that is transparent, harmonized, and cost-effective. Underpinned by the best scientific knowledge and technologies this framework aims to provide a clear soil health index for benchmarking, using indicators that are pertinent to the objective of assessment, applicable to the land use, and logistically feasible.

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