Governance and business models for living labs: rural regeneration hubs for tackling soil health challenges in the Mediterranean region

A Mediterranean network of five Living Labs in France, Greece, and Spain is laying the groundwork for soil management innovation, local cooperation, and sustainable business strategies. FiBL France is the representative of the French Living Lab in the Val de Drôme, alongside its regional partners. These five Living Labs are the first of the 100 Living Labs that the Soil Mission aims to develop across Europe by 2030.

In the EU, 60-70% of soils are degraded as a direct result of unsustainable management. However, tackling this multifaceted challenge is not an easy task, mainly because farmers' decisions are influenced by a wide range of factors, making it difficult to define regenerative soil management practices that are simultaneously effective, economical, have demonstrable yield benefits and are easy to implement.

In this context, the goal is to foster a collective awareness, at the level of five Mediterranean regions, that soils and humans must be understood as social-ecological systems and that no organisation/solution alone is capable of sustainably transforming the system.

The main objectives of the project are :

1. to explore regional needs and drivers, and to validate governance models for operating multi-actor co-creation processes
2. to establish a network of five agro-innovation hubs sustained by underlying business models
3. to define harmonised regional baselines for 7 out of the 8 indicators found in the Soil Mission Implementation plan
4. to kick-start the multi-actor co-design and validation of solutions for soil health that are practical and scalable
5. to facilitate the diffusion of innovation through a plethora of communication and dissemination actions.

FiBL France is responsible for leading the Val de Drôme Living Lab and will act as its ambassador to the Soil Mission. Additionally, FiBL France is in charge of coordinating 275 trials across the 5 territories and scaling up their results.

• European Commission

• European Commission, Horizon Europe

Partner of the Val de Drôme Living Lab (direct partners of FiBL France):

• Community of Municipalities of the Val de Drôme (CCVD)
• Chamber of Agriculture of Drôme (CA 26)
• GRAB Research Group in Organic Agriculture
• SOLAGRO: consultancy specializing in energy, climate, agroecological, and food transition

A total of 36 project partners from 6 countries (listed in the CORDIS project entry)

• Arsonneau Florence (FiBL France)
• Chomel Mathilde (FiBL France)

• Charles Raphaël (Department Suisse Romande)
• Fuchs Jacques (Department of Crop Sciences)

Project partner, Task leader 3.3, ambassador of the French Living Lab

• cordis.europa.eu: Project on the CORDIS website

• Department Suisse Romande (FiBL Switzerland)
• FiBL France
• Plant Protection - Phytopathology (Department of Crop Sciences, FiBL Switzerland)