Adapting agriculture for a sustainable future

The LIFE ENVIRONMENT / LIFE AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION Magazine of the EC has published an extensive study on the contribution of LIFE projects towards Climate Change & Adaptation.

Our project was mentioned in the Agriculture section, under the publication tittle "Adapting agriculture for a sustainable future"

The reference to our project mentioned " ... Mr Egbert Sonneveld is lending his expertise to a Spanish project, Operation CO2, which is being led by the University of Valladolid. This project is targeting microorganisms in the soil and reintroducing the use of an old type of plough on ridges (the “Roman plough”) that enables the crop roots to penetrate deeper into the soil and thus increase its fertility and resilience to climate change. “Once these (deeper) layers are penetrated by roots the next crop makes use of these channels, so we see a soil of 20 centimetres deep turning into a soil of more than a metre deep in just a few years. And by avoiding heavy turning movements of the soil the essential and beneficial microorganisms colonise these deeper layers as well,” he explains.

The project is able to make these measurements by digging holes after each plant and following the roots – the impact on yields is considerable. “The plough is the perfect tool to obtain aeration of the soil and this of course helps with the fixing of nitrogen. Even in a very dry year, the yield of vetches on our plot in Zamora is higher than the irrigated crop in the same area.”

Click here for the complete study.