CAOS - Climate Smart Agriculture on Organic Soils

The project CAOS is coordinated by the Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture and aims to generate the knowledge to design climate smart agricultural systems for organic soils adapted to the diverse regional conditions of Europe. We propose that wet organic soils could be used as risk insurance in dry periods on farm or regional level, while water and soil management could prevent yield losses due to trafficability problems in wet conditions. CAOS will provide and distribute evidence that climate smart management improves yield stability and quality as well as resilience to climate change while providing strong GHG mitigation and improved soil and water quality. We expect that the strong potential for adaptation to increased climatic variability on farmed organic soil will facilitate mitigation of the largest GHG source from agriculture in Central and Northern Europe. Study regions represent typical land use systems and unique challenges in six regions in Europe with a large share of organic soils drained for agriculture.

Project partners:

• Dr. Norbert Röder, Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute, Thünen-Institute for Rural Studies Braunschweig, Germany.
• Dr. Kristiina Regina, MTT Agrifood Research Finland  (MTT), Jokioinen, Finland.
• Prof. Ülo Mander, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Estonia.
• Dr. Poul Erik Lærke, Aarhus University, Denmark.
• Dr. Kerstin Berglund, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Soil and Environment, Uppsala, Sweden.
• Jan van den Akker, Stichting Dienst Landbouwkundig Onderzoek (DLO-Alterra), Wageningen, The Netherlands.

The Kick-off meeting for CAOS takes place from December 10^th to December 11^th at Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture.