Interview with Óscar Veroz, Executive Director of the Spanish Association for Conservation Agriculture Living Soils (AEAC.SV)
What does your association do?
The Asociación Española Agricultura de Conservación Suelos Vivos is a non-profit organisation, independent and open to any natural person (farmers, technicians, researchers) or legal entity (companies, public bodies) interested in agricultural practices that lead to a better conservation of agricultural soil and its biodiversity.
Our goals are:
- To promote information to farmers, agricultural technicians and society in general on techniques that make it possible to conserve agricultural soil and its biodiversity in the context of sustainable agriculture.
- To promote the development, teaching and research of any aspect related to conservation agriculture and agricultural soil biodiversity.
What is your role in the Life Innocereal project? What is your role?
According to our experience and knowledge, our role in the project is mainly focused on actions in the primary sector of the chain (wheat and barley production), with other partners taking care of the processing, distribution and consumer side of the chain.
Specifically, we are responsible for the selection of the farms that will make up the network of farms at national level in which the good practices aimed at low carbon agriculture will be implemented and for the demonstrative design to be carried out in each of the farms in order to verify that the good practices do indeed contribute to reducing the carbon footprint. Furthermore, we will be in charge of verifying the effective implementation of these practices and of carrying out the agronomic monitoring of these practices throughout the development period of the project and of evaluating the yield and quality of the harvest.
On the other hand, the AEACSV also participates in a relevant way in the monitoring and evaluation of impact indicators, as well as in the communication, dissemination and networking actions of the project.
As a partner, what are your objectives within the project?
Mainly to adequately develop action and monitoring plans on demonstration farms focused on conservation and digital agriculture to serve as an example for other farms, with the aim of increasing the use of soil as a carbon sink, reducing the level of GHG emissions associated with cultivation practices, reducing input consumption while maintaining or increasing production and its quality, and thereby improving the economic and environmental balance of cereals.
Contribute to generating knowledge, both at economic and environmental level, which serves to disseminate its potential and applicability through agricultural policies and through training and dissemination actions.
What methods/tools will you make available to Life Innocereal?
The AEACSV has extensive experience in conservation agriculture, both in technical and training and dissemination aspects, as well as in the management of farm networks at regional and national level. In this sense, we are making our knowledge available in the implementation and monitoring of good practices, as well as in the development of dissemination and transfer actions to the agents of the sector.
Finally, why did you decide to join Life Innocereal?
We had previously had the opportunity to participate in the AEI “Innovatrigo” Operational Group, which in part motivated the Life Innocereal project, and we found it very interesting to continue along these lines.
Undoubtedly, the development of projects that integrate the entire value chain around the development of practices that are included in what is currently called Carbon Farming is undoubtedly a matter of great interest for the AEACSV, as Conservation Agriculture is one of the fundamental practices for this type of agriculture and the development of low carbon strategies in the agricultural sector. On the other hand, Innocereal is an integrated and vertical project, which makes it more complete.