HELPSOIL Guidelines for Conservation Agriculture Application and Dissemination

The Life project "HelpSoil – Helping enhanced soil functions and adaptation to climate change by sustainable conservation agriculture techniques" had the objective of evaluating and demonstrating "on the ground" innovative agricultural land management techniques, which, by improving the functionality of soils, could contribute to resilience and adaptation to climate change. The project actions took place between 2013 and 2017 and involved the Po Valley and Veneto-Friuli area and the surrounding hill areas of the Apennine and Alpine borders. During the project, conservation practices and conventional land management practices were compared by monitoring agronomic and environmental indicators for three consecutive agricultural years in 20 demonstrative farms. The details of: cultivation techniques descriptions, data collected and the test results carried out in demonstrative farms are reported on the project website www.lifehelpsoil.eu. The hereafter "Guidelines" provides indications for the Conservation Agriculture application and dissemination, highlighting opportunities and limitations, the positive effects and details that still require agronomic development. The document has the aim to define a framework of shared technical references, appropriate for the Po Valley and Veneto basin, but open and transferable also in other Italian and European agricultural contexts. The "Guidelines" are addressed to farmers, agricultural technicians, institutions, students, high schoolteachers, citizens, etc., that are interested in knowledge of the rules and agro-environmental aspects of Conservation Agriculture, finding the necessary information to approach it in a proper way.