The CIRCASA team has gathered stakeholders’ perspectives on the potential for soil carbon management to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable intensification of agriculture and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The overarching methodology consisted of a public online survey translated into seven languages and answered by approximately 2,000 stakeholders around the world and of 10 regional workshops.
Drawing on the extensive stakeholder consultation across the globe, CIRCASA shows that farmers require knowledge that answers two overall questions concerning soil carbon sequestration – "What's in it for me?" and "How do I get there?". Farmers need information on the benefits, risks, trade-offs and time effort linked to improving soil organic carbon levels. Non-farming stakeholders prioritized the needs, also expressed by farmers, for more knowledge on effective financing options and on monitoring, reporting and verification methods, as well as on societal benefits of soil carbon.
Importantly, while more research is certainly required in some areas (e.g. on soil carbon balance monitoring and on some of the soil carbon processes), the access to existing knowledge is key in other areas (e.g. farm-level management). To improve access to knowledge and develop tailored context-specific guidance for farmers, innovative forms of knowledge creation and exchange need to complement traditional top-down approaches. Specifically, participatory forms of knowledge (co-) creation and exchange, which involve farmers in the research process, and therefore in defining the research question and in the collection of data, are promising. Examples are so-called living labs and the crowdsourcing of information.
An assessment of the scientific literature allowed identifying specific challenges for research and innovation. Researchers across the world were asked in a questionnaire to prioritize for future research the challenges. To address the challenges, testable hypotheses were designed for future research, spanning the physical scales and the scientific disciplines. Through testing at international scale these hypotheses, the knowledge base for soil carbon management in agriculture would be largely improved thereby allowing offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience of agricultural production, and taking steps towards a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
A STRATEGIC RESEARCH AGENDA (SRA) TO FACILITATE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONSORTIUM (IRC) ON SOIL CARBON.
From the advanced understanding of the knowledge supply by science and of the knowledge demand by stakeholders, the CIRCASA project has developed a SRA to encourage further research on soil carbon sequestration and to pursue the question of how to create (research) infrastructures, which facilitate regionally applicable insights and exchange. All partners of CIRCASA have adopted the final version of this SRA, which shows clear priorities for alignment of European and international research and innovation (R&I) in the area of agricultural SOC paving the road to international research cooperation on relevant knowledge and innovation. The SRA is structured into four pillars resulting from the priorities agreed during the revision process which involved all project partners, the stakeholder advisory board, the research policy committee and the EC services:
Pillar 1 – Frontiers research: unlocking the potential of soil carbon
Pillar 2 – Soil carbon balance monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system
Pillar 3 – Technological and agro-ecological innovations.
Pillar 4 – Enabling environment and knowledge co-creation
The SRA underlines the need to develop an IRC on SOC in agriculture with large potential benefits for stakeholders through highly interdisciplinary research and innovation (R&I) guided by stakeholder’s demands. An IRC would provide a knowledge bridge across continents. International cooperation for R&I can generate a large range of outputs for national and local stakeholders, including access to actionable knowledge, demonstration of new technologies and of new assessment methods, training and capacity building. Funders have to be able to see why they should invest in R&I activities within the IRC, end users need to see how specific activities will create desirable outcomes and researchers need to find funding and an attractive environment in this IRC. In this way, an IRC would enable a structured approach and improved international coordination to create breakthroughs, avoid duplication of activities and develop innovation on a large scale. CIRCASA has made first proposals for the governance and funding of this IRC and for its initial work plan, which also includes training and capacity building activities.
After three years, the CIRCASA project came to the end, holding a final virtual high-level conference. This was an opportunity to gather more than 220 participants from the 5 continents. Public and private sector stakeholders, global regions, and global initiatives expressed their interest in the development of an IRC on soil carbon and their support to the SRA.
