Presentation made by Jane Mills at the BONARES Conference 2018: “Soil as a Sustainable Resource” took place on 26–28 February 2018 in Berlin.

1. Are advisory services ‘fit for purpose’ to
support sustainable soil management? A
review of advisory capacity in Europe
Julie Ingram and Jane Mills
Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI)
University of Gloucestershire
BONARES 2018 Conference, Berlin
28th February 2018

2. Why we are asking the question?
• Influential role of advice and information at the
farm level is well known
• Increasing complexities of soil management
associated with a range of specialised, ‘smarter’ yet
sustainable systems requires qualitatively different
sorts of information, advice and support.
• The capacity to provide effective farm advisory
services to support SSM is a key component of soil
governance
So timely to ask “Are advisory services ‘fit for
purpose’ to support sustainable soil management?”

3. Background
• Substantial literature review
• SmartSOIL project (EU FP7 )
• RECARE project (EU FP7 )
• SoilCare (EU H2020 )
• SOLINSA (EU FP7)
• AGRIDEMO (EU H2020)

4. Frame conditions
Policy objectives
Governance
Socio economics
Farming Systems
AKS changes
SSM demands
• Complex concepts
• Trade offs an synergies
(soil functions)
• Adaptation or
adoption
• Heterogeneous soil
• Long time span
• Systems approach
• No single message
Characteristics of
Advisory systems
• Extent of joined up
approach
• Capacity
• Extension approaches
• Training investment
Performance
Meeting complex
demands for soil
•Extent of support for
adaptation and
learning
•Extent of technical
expertise for adoption
•Extent of credible
evidence
General advisory
performance
•Extent of
cohesion/joined up
advice
•Extent of
conflicting/synergistic
advice
•Extent of integration
•Extent of enhanced
networking
•Access to F2F advisers
Impact
Extent of
• SSM
• Sustainable
intensification
• Informed/compet
ent farmers
• Water protection
• Food security
• Competitive
farming industry
Land manager
decision
• Learning and
empowerment
• Adaptation
• Adoption
• Farm
performance
Characteristics of
land managers
• Extent of competence,
networking
innovativeness
• Capacity to change
is it fit for purpose?
Has SSM been
achieved?
Framework
adapted from
Birner et al. (2009)

5. Frame conditions
Policy objectives
Governance
Socio economics
Farming Systems
AKS changes
SSM demands
• Complex concepts
• Trade offs an synergies
(soil functions)
• Adaptation or
adoption
• Heterogeneous soil
• Long time span
• Systems approach
• No single message
Characteristics of
Advisory systems
• Extent of joined up
approach
• Capacity
• Extension approaches
• Training investment
Performance
Meeting complex
demands for soil
•Extent of support for
adaptation and
learning
•Extent of technical
expertise for adoption
•Extent of credible
evidence
General advisory
performance
•Extent of
cohesion/joined up
advice
•Extent of
conflicting/synergistic
advice
•Extent of integration
•Extent of enhanced
networking
•Access to F2F advisers
Impact
Extent of
• SSM
• Sustainable
intensification
• Informed/compet
ent farmers
• Water protection
• Food security
• Competitive
farming industry
Land manager
decision
• Learning and
empowerment
• Adaptation
• Adoption
• Farm
performance
Characteristics of
land managers
• Extent of competence,
networking
innovativeness
• Capacity to change
is it fit for purpose?
Has SSM been
achieved?
Framework
adapted from
Birner et al. (2009)

6. Delivering Soil Advice
Challenging: Complex, Dynamic and
Evolving
Sustainable
Soil
Management
Demands
Characteristics
of Advisory
Services
Characteristics
of Land
Managers

7. Sustainable Soil Management and
implications for advice
1) Sustainable soil
management is part of a wider
farming system management
Complex
Nutrient management
Advice needs to integrate into existing advice and advisory
programmes and avoid single issues
Weed management
Water management
Tillage management
Soil Functions

8. Attributes of Soil Management
Adaptation - Not Adoption
2) Soil management is highly
site and cropping system
specific
• Prescriptions for soil management with wide applicability
unlikely
• Advisory services should seek to apply principles and
adapt to local situations in some situations
Requires advisers to support farmer LEARNING
• Advice has different requirements depending on the
extent of change involved

9. Attributes of Soil Management
Advisers need to be equipped to provide this evidence with
research data, farmer case studies, demonstration plots
• Benefits and negative impacts of soil management are not
always observable and/or take a long time to become apparent.
Advisers need to find and provide evidence using
appropriate metrics so farmers can weigh up the risks
• Providing convincing economic evidence for some soil
management practices is challenging.

10. Attributes of Land Managers
• No longer ‘typical farmers’ - producers, smallholders, large
commercial farm managers, contractors….

11. Attributes of EU Advisory Systems
• Many advisory systems across Europe have become
fragmented – pluralistic agricultural advisory services
providers are:
Agricultural
Chambers

12. Attributes of EU Advisory Service
Privatization in some countries has
reduced the public extension services
• Free face to face advice at the farm
level is often no longer available
• Increasingly information and advice is
provided by actors with commercial
motivations or by poorly equipped/
non specialist public advisers
Can be tensions between private and public sector goals

13. Attributes of EU Advisory Service
Quality of services with respect to soil is highly variable.
• Formal public advisory services are used primarily for
accessing subsidies and complying with regulations rather
than supporting productivity/sustainability
• Public extension services can be poorly resourced, low
capacity, with poorly trained advisers
• Private sector services better trained/equipped in relation to
maximising yield and specialist crop production - may not
consider other soil functions or long term issues

14. Examples of Effective Activities
• Farmer groups and networks emerging
to fill the gaps in delivery and topics
• Groups of farmers + advisers +
researchers facilitated and supported to
explore ways of enhancing soil
productivity and sustainability
• Integrated approaches - mandatory
measures and incentives with advice to
support voluntary adoption of soil
protection measure

15. Are Advisory Systems ‘Fit for Purpose’?
• Governance - better policy integration, better resourced
public services, more partnerships
• Identify good practice examples and see how these can be
scaled up – e.g. Operational Groups
• Advisers need more technical expertise in soils
• More facilitation -requires different adviser skills
• Recognise that different intermediaries and knowledge
brokers are now active - foster these
• Better communication between advisers and researchers to
acquire and translate evidence

16. Any Questions?
Thank You….
jmills@glos.ac.uk
jingram@glos.ac.uk
www.recare-project.eu
@RECARE_EU
www.soilcare-project.eu
@SoilCare_EU