Success stories are shared via newsletters, during the annual Forum of partners, and during events of the Climate-Soil Community of Practice (CoP). 5 thematic events per year A virtual fair involving 50% of the partners 10 thematic events per year A virtual fair involving all partnersObjective A3 - Share Experiences
Label Title Description Share Experiences Facilitate an active multi-stakeholder exchange on innovations and success stories. Relevant ideas, innovations, and success stories (bottom-up and top-down approaches) from the "4 per 1000" stakeholders are compiled, communicated globally, discussed, and considered. Targets A3 - Share Experiences
Baseline 2020 Target 2030 Target 2030
Context A3 - Share Experiences
Problem A3 - Share Experiences
Problem Statement | Description | Consequences |
---|---|---|
Successful examples of transition to sustainable land and soil management are not well documented and shared globally. | Programs that have been successful in increasing SH&SOC are poorly documented and too scattered to find. Reports are too technical to read and inconsistent measurement tools are used. Positive results tend to be shared only within a project or organizational network and are not publicly available. The inhomogeneity of success indicators makes it difficult to compare different projects and programs, and economic benefits are not always reported. | Because the (economic) benefits of moving away from land exploitation are not clear, the transition to sustainable alternatives is perceived as a radical, and marginal phenomenon that should not be practiced widely. |
Causes A3 - Share Experiences
N° | Cause | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | Insufficient networking | Lack of effective vertical networks across scientists, farmers, and key national stakeholders along the whole value chain, especially in developing countries. There is no lack of networks within each sector, but cross sectors networks are yet to be built. |
2 | Scarcity of convincing stories | Success stories with economic benefits remain marginal in an agricultural world dominated by land-exploitative systems. Different stakeholders need not only different stories to motivate them, but also guidance and support to change their behavior so that they ultimately benefit. |
3 | Little incentive | Sharing success stories widely beyond your own networks means a lot of work for which there is no incentive. There must be lots of success stories. But sharing those success stories with other people does not give them (project holders) direct benefit. |
4 | Insufficient evidence | Inconsistent indicators, measurement, and evaluation tools to value a project and economic benefits are always not emphasized. Programs having success with increasing soil carbon lack guidance and support for measuring increases in soil carbon and very often such measurement can be costly for low-budget projects. |
5 | Growth Paradigm | Environmental sustainability is not considered as economically successful as exploitative practices because the economic benefits of regenerative practices are seldom reported. Along the value chains from farmers to business groups, success is always measured by profits. For consumers, success is getting the best or most abundant food at the lowest cost. A different mindset needs to be established for all parties to pursue 'success' measured by both the 'amount of carbon sequestrated' and cost-cut and yield increase as a result. |
6 | Misconception of success | The dichotomy of environmental and economic benefits gives the public the wrong perception that one must sacrifice economic benefits to achieve environmental goals. Farmers applying the right understanding of soil and plant science in their practices would reap both increases in soil carbon and yield. Economic benefits should also be an important success indicator of regenerative practices. |
Implementation strategy A3 - Share Experiences
Activities A3 - Share Experiences
N° | Activity | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | Expand the notion of success | Define and mainstream a holistic (quantifiable) concept of success that goes beyond the economic benefits of higher yields or lower costs and considers climate, ecological and societal benefits, and is instrumental to the creation of carbon markets as additional drivers of change. |
2 | Gather success stories | Organize calls for success stories amongst the different stakeholder groups of the Initiative, in different languages, among different networks, and with clearly defined selection criteria and procedures. Identify target systems that are considered transformative, and search actively for successful implementation examples. |
3 | Organize events | Present success stories during workshops, such as the CoP-workshops, which can contribute to the exchange of ideas and techniques with a wider audience. Organize an annual virtual fair. |
4 | Promote Communities of Practice (CoP) | Expand the network of actors with a mutual vision and common goals in the field of Soil Health (SH) and Soil Organic Carbon (SOC). |
5 | Provide an exchange platform | Systematically gather and disseminate relevant content. Enable problem-oriented exchange and collaboration of actors via the collaborative platform. |
Critical Success Factors (CSFs) A3 - Share Experiences
N° | Critical Success Factor | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | The improved conception of success | Redefine and mainstream a new concept of higher success expanding the economic profit to climate and societal benefits. A new meaning of 'higher success' cannot be defined only through the statistical data of carbon sequestration but other important aspects like social-economic and cultural impacts, etc. It cannot be contrived as a new weapon of cultural imperialism under the disguise of a global ecological crisis. |
2 | Effective networking | Expand networks to share success stories through common partners and related goals. Build a successful community that shares people's knowledge of new and emerging science-based techniques in similar climatic and ecological contexts. |
3 | Evidence of benefits | Harmonize the quantification of benefits (economic, nutritional, environmental, societal) and put them at the center of the storytelling. Internationally agreed and communicable standards of ‘success’, ‘SOC increment and mitigation effect’, ‘yield enhancement’, ‘food nutrition enhancement and cost-cut must be established through consensus building before stories of success become the new norm for people to follow. |
4 | Appropriate Targeting | Address different stakeholder groups with tailored stories of their particular interest. It is important to have different stories for different stakeholders to reach the ground: farmers, NGOs, companies, researchers, media, the wider public, and decision-makers. |
5 | Cross-cultural communication | Facilitate translations and the possibility to access information via different channels. Quite a few successful experiences, though measured qualitatively, have been reported in less developed countries and in mainland China and other non-English speaking regions. It is for the world's benefit that their experiences can also be shared through this international platform to create real global impacts. |
6 | Visibility of success stories | Provide a digital platform to increase the visibility of success stories. It is difficult to give project holders direct incentives (e.g., economic incentives). But increasing the visibility of a success story, for example on the website, could be an incentive because it makes some people happy and excited that his/her effort appears on the website as a success story. |
7 | Practice recognition | Science-based techniques and knowledge of regenerative farming alternatives must be recognized and promoted by a critical mass of practitioners. |
Barriers A3 - Share Experiences
N° | Barriers | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | A false idea of success | It can be subjective to qualify “a success” or “a failure”. It would be good to build an analysis grid regarding sustainable soil management. |
2 | An insufficient distinction between success and promotion | Make the difference between a success story being told and marketing promotion of an action or a program. It can be assumed, but it needs to be clarified from the beginning. |
3 | Cultural and sectoral gaps | Cultural barriers between different sectors along the whole value chain. Scientists, businessmen, farmers, government officials, politicians, and environmentalists all have different working cultures and languages. All these barriers need to be overcome in order that collaborative platforms can fully function. |
4 | Digital divide | Other barriers to effective communication and collaboration across sectors are digital and technical gaps. Overcoming such barriers is particularly important if a consensus on success indicators is to be reached. |
5 | Insufficient communication means | Variable to poor access to communication means by the target group. |
6 | Language | Science-based regenerative knowledge and practice dissemination to practitioners requires effective communication means. Farmers in less developed areas are seldom bilingual. Lots of translation work need to be done to reach out to the non-English speaking communities to make the Initiative a real global involvement. Lots of work also need to be done to translate the scientific language to get it simplified without falsification. |
7 | Low level of inclusion and access | Targets groups may not be part of a network or group of influence to have access to information |