Practice Makes Perfect: A look at the PREPSOIL Communities of Practice

Since the launch of the project in July 2022, and through a regionally-focused approach, PREPSOIL’s partners located throughout 19 different European countries have been working to identify, map and engage local Communities of Practice.
The aim of the Community of Practice initiative is simple, bottom-up methodology where farmers and other agricultural communities located throughout the world can share experience and link-up to reproduce healthy soil practices.

The PREPSOIL Communities of Practice Explained

Within the framework of the PREPSOIL project, a Community of Practice (CoP) is any community-led initiative where local actors come together to address and act upon a specific concern related to soils.

The Communities of Practice already linked up by PREPSOIL can be found on the “Soil in Practice”-section of the PREPSOIL website. The CoPs are divided into six categories based on Agriculture, Forestry, Natural, Urban, Industry and Mixed land use.  CoPs can belong to more than one category at the time.

Six Communities of Practice have already been added to the PREPSOIL website for inspiration. and represent different approaches to soil health in diverse locations such as Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and Slovakia.

There is  always room for more, so if you think that your soil community could be a candidate, don’t hesitate to fill out the form on the PREPSOIL website. The initiative is open to Communities of Practice from all over the world.

Knowledge sharing and inspiration

On the PREPSOIL website, you can learn more about the different Communities of Practice and their ongoing efforts to improve soil health.

As well as providing detailed information on the CoPs and their initiatives, there is also a dedicated forum, where anyone can ask questions and discuss methods with the Communities of Practice.

On the PREPSOIL discussion forum it is possible to discuss best practices, new solutions, make propositions about replication in other territories, or simply provide information on similar activities that might empower the work of the CoP.

Generally, the forum is a place where Communities of Practice, soil advocates, experts and enthusiasts can discuss all things soil with each other.

There is also an option to directly contact a dedicated contact person from the Community of Practice. The Soil CoP section and its forum provide a place to get inspired, to exchange and to foster the development of good soil health practices.

Learn more about our other PREPSOIL initiatives

The effort to map Communities of Practice all over the world is just one of PREPSOIL’s efforts to increase soil literacy across target groups.

PREPSOIL is an EU-funded project which supports the deployment of the “A Soil Deal for Europe” mission to reduce soil degradation, while increasing soil awareness and soil literacy in all land-use cases throughout Europe.

The Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe” states that the lack of knowledge and awareness of the cruciality of long-term soil health among different stakeholders - land managers, industries, consumers and society at large - is a major driver of soil degradation, affecting its capacity to provide ecosystem services.

PREPSOIL aids the Mission by providing tools and spaces to facilitate knowledge exchange, capacity building and cross-regional connection such as its Soil Sustainability series and the Multilingual Soil Knowledge-Hub.

Check our catalogue of Communities of Practice!