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Project Topic
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Original Mediterranean agroecosystems were based on a combination of olives, vines and wheat grown in the same management units, basically consisting in agroforestry systems where the tree component was represented by olives and vines (Sanjuán & Migliorini, 2023). Such systems might inspire an agroecological transition including elements of innovation for increasing farm productivity while securing the capacity of agroecosystems to be indefinitely biodiverse. The general objective of RevAgroForMed is to contribute to the revitalization of the agroforestry systems in the Mediterranean Region with a view to enhancing its productivity while improving soil quality and increasing climate resilience, through research, innovation, and action in the field of agroecology, organic farming and precision agriculture techniques applied to agroforestry systems.
We identify two strategies to improve agroforestry performance in combination with agroecology, organic farming and precision agriculture techniques: i) the first concerns traditional agroforestry systems, updating them with revitalizing agroecological practices like cover crops, mulching, diversified rotations, participatory genetic improvement methods, integration of animals and application of advanced certification systems dedicated to agroforestry; ii) the second strategy should integrate agroforestry practices with ecologically intensified organic, microorganic and precision farming techniques to promote the adoption of agroforestry as a structural diversification to boost ecological transition in agriculture.
Research, innovation and action under the umbrella of RevAgroforMed will be developed by applying a living lab approach. The living lab model applied to agroforestry focuses on promoting sustainable farming practices that combine agriculture, livestock and forestry to improve agricultural productivity, biodiversity and environmental resilience. The structure of the living labs will consist of a 'lighthouse' farm, where the analysis of the solutions will focus, and a network of action and target farms, which will ensure the management of the innovation and its implementation at the end of the project.
The impact of innovative agroforestry systems and technologies will be assessed in terms of land, energy, water, productivity, impacts on biodiversity, soil quality and environmental pollution, response to climate and macro-economic fluctuations of state variables, soil biodiversity in terms of microbiome and microarthropods. Multivariate statistics methods will be used to identify and describe local farm typologies and assess to what extent sustainability impacts of practices and innovation found on field and farm scale will reflect at landscape level. Based on such results, stakeholder awareness will be strengthened by i) carrying out workshops on application of in-field visual methods for soil quality assessment like use of weeds as bioindicators, earthworm sampling, spade test, penetration resistance, ii) application of digitization methods to map and trace trends of soil quality records, iii) developing in each AFLL networks of lighthouse and action farms hosting demonstration activities to boost the adoption of successful innovations while generating a sort of butterfly effect, and iv) a summer school aimed at sharing metagenomic technologies applied to the study of biodiversity for young researchers, including a round table discussion aimed at popularizing the topics covered during the school, involving farms and other stakeholders.
RevAgroForMed aims to engage with the public contexts of different regions in the Mediterranean through policy briefs, gender action, certification of ecosystem services of agroforestry targeted to societal stakeholders, networking of farmers by digitalization of information on soil quality, new technical, and socio-economic business models proposed to the community.
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