Every year on 5 December, ECN and the International Compost Alliance celebrate World Soil Day with a webinar. The aim is to promote healthy soils for a greener future.
World Soil Day 2024
On 5 December, ECN celebrated World Soil Day with a webinar on 'Healthy Soils with Compost - the beneficial use of compost on soils'. The webinar was hosted by the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the University of Bologna.
As the webinar focussed on the WSD theme 2024 "Caring for soils: Measure, Monitor, Manage", the ECN Policy Officer Aline Granjard presented the latest EU institutional discussions on the Commission's proposal for a Soil Monitoring Law.
As keynote speaker of the webinar, Professor Marco Grigatti from the University of Bologna reported on the first results of the long-term field trial on soil organic matter from compost application in Italy of the Navarra project 2018-2023.
Finally, ongoing collaborative projects on the mainstreaming of bio-waste management (Life BioBest) and on circular fertilisation on healthy soils (Fer-Play) were presented by Eva Lopez Hernandez, project manager of the Italian Compost and Biogas Association (CIC). An update on the Interreg project Composting in rural environments (CORE) was given by Stefanie Siebert, Executive Director of ECN.
The presentations of the webinar and the recording are available.
World Soil Day 2023
Europe’s New Soil Monitoring Law & Compost Effect On Soil Biodiversity.
The one-hour online event organised by ECN for the celebration of this year’s World Soil Day on 5 December, is now available on ECN’s Youtube channel. You will find presentations from Riccardo Gambini – ECN policy officer – on the state of play of the EU Soil Monitoring Law, and from Dr. Sebastiano Nigris – researcher at the University of Padua – showing the results from his study on the effect of compost application on soil biodiversity. Furthermore, you can access the presentation slides by ECN's policy officer, Riccardo Gambini and ECN's executive director Dr. Stefanie Siebert here.
World Soil Day 2022
5 December 2022 is the United Nations World Soil Day (WSD). This year's campaign, "Soils, where food begins" highlights the value of soil for food production, better nutrition, and healthy diets.
The soil beneath our feet is a world made up of organisms, minerals, and organic matter that supply humans and animals with food through plant growth. Just like us, soils need balanced and varied input of nutrients in appropriate quantities to be healthy. When crops are harvested, nutrients are removed from the soil. Nutrient deficient soils produce nutrient deficient plants, causing hidden hunger for more than 2 billion people worldwide.
Soils have no borders and are at risk. This year's WSD will focus on the importance of soils for nutrition while serving as a call to action and empathy for those who bear the brunt of these threats.
The presentation of ECN Chair of TG Soil & Organic Mattes, Alberto Confalonieri can be accessed here, Rainer Baritz’s presentation can be accessed here and the ECN position paper on the Soil Health Law here.
If you haven't had the chance to follow the webinar, you can watch the recorded seminar on our youtube channel here.
World Soil Day 2021
The European Compost Network celebrates the World Soil Day with a presentation on the EU Strategy on Soil, a short lecture on the benefits of compost application over long time and with a relevant panel debate on the way forward to save organics in soil.
The European Compost Network thanks the panelists and speakers who accepted our invitation, namely Alberto Confalonieri (CIC Italy), Annabelle Williams (Rise Foundation), Annemie Elsen (BDB), Célia Neyssens (EEB), Mirco Barbero (European Commission) and Stijn Martens (DBD).
The power point presentation on the soil strategy is available at this link. The power point presentation on the long field compost trial can be accessed here. The recording of Ms Elsen’s lecture can be watched here. The European Commission will prepare an impact assessment next year to support a legislative proposal on soil health to be presented in 2023. The Soil Health Law will likely set a binding target to reduce leakage of nutrients from soil of 50% by 2030 and put forward quantitative goals to achieve by 2050.