Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Resource Economics

SOCO-CS

Soil conservation and policy measures: the case studies (SoCo-CS)

Start: 1.12.2007

End: 30.11.2008



The SoCo-CS Project is part of a larger research programme titled „Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation“ commissioned by DG Agriculture and Rural Development. In the framework of this programme, the SoCo-CS Project conducted a number of case studies with the aim to obtain in-depth information on the application of soil conservation practices and to analyse their effect on the natural environment. They will also reveal the role which institutions and governance structures, policies and regulations play in adoption of these practices by farmers looking at a variety of physical, institutional, socio-economic and historical contexts throughout the EU. The case study areas are located in 10 European countries.

Outputs of the project are individual case study reports, an EU-wide overview of soil conservation policies and a summary report. A number of workshops have been organised to disseminate project results to relevant stakeholders.

An executive summary of the SoCo results is available under Summary of SoCo results. Further information and various documents are available from the SoCo Website 

http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/SOCO/

including the case study reports, workshop reports and presentations. The final Summary Report is expected to be published online in April 2009.

Project Coordinator: Dr. Katrin Prager
Researcher: Nina Hagemann, Renate Judis

Project Partner:

  • Institute of Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre (JRC-IPTS), Sevilla, Spain (Tomas Ratinger, Hubertus Gay, Frank Sammeth)- Overall coordination of the Project “Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation” (SoCo)
  • Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF), Müncheberg, Germany (Katharina Helming, Peter Zander, Johannes Schuler)
  • Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), London,UK (David Baldock, Catherine Bowyer, Tamsin Cooper)
  • 13 case study partners in Belgium, Denmark, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Czech Republic as well as case study providers in France and Italy


  • Management: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Konrad Hagedorn

    Fund: EU

    Project Website: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/SOCO/

    Publications and Presentations:
    • PRAGER, K.; HAGEDORN, K. (2009): Applying the Institutions of Sustainability Framework to the case of agricultural soil conservation. Paper accepted for presentation at the 8th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE), University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 29 June to 2 July 2009.
    • HAGEMANN, N.; HELMING, K.; HEYN, N.; SATTLER, C.; SCHULER, J.; PRAGER, K.; ZANDER, P. (2008): Case Study Report Uckermark, Germany. WP2 – Case studies on soil/ land management and policy measures. SoCo Project. Online resource: http://soco.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
    • HAGEMANN, N.; PRAGER, K.; HAGEDORN, K. (2008): Adapting policy measures to encourage the adoption of soil conservation practices. In: Blum, W.; Gerzabek, M.H.; Vodrazka, M. (Eds.): Book of Abstracts. EUROSOIL 2008, p.125. Presentation at the ECSSS EUROSOIL Conference, 25-29 August 2008, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria.
    • PRAGER, K. (2008): Soil conservation and policy measures – Findings from eight case studies across Europe. Presentation at the 5th International Scientific Conference on Sustainable Farming Systems ECOMIT, 5-7 November 2008, Piestany, Slovakia.
       
    • Final report on the project 'Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (SoCo)'