Cartagena, Spain, 5 June 2024.
The GOV4ALL Project was officially launched on Wednesday, 5 June 2024, marking another step towards improving soil health in the European Union. The four-and-a-half-year project, funded by the EU within the Soil Mission, will focus on inspiring rural communities to participate in the identification, testing and dissemination of regenerative soil management practices and on the creation of long-lasting sustainable innovation centres.
It will operate under the official title “Governance and business models for living labs: Rural regeneration hubs for tackling soil health challenges in the Mediterranean region.” GOV4ALL has established five agro-innovation hubs – two in Greece, two in Spain and one in France.
These living labs will demonstrate that co-created systemic changes in soil management at a regional level are possible. They will serve as nerve-centres for the project’s bottom-up, participatory approach that place farmers and rural communities at the centre of efforts to protect and restore Europe’s soils.
“Our ambition is to put farmers at the centre of the innovation process, tapping into their vast knowledge to generate sustainable solutions that are beneficial for people and the planet.” – Tristano Bacchetti De Gregoris, GOV4ALL Coordinator. A central mission of GOV4ALL is to drive change by fostering connections between rural communities and local, national and international innovation ecosystems, nurturing leadership and entrepreneurship with viable andl ong-lasting business models. The project, coordinated by the Spanish company SAE Innova (www.saeinnova.com), will demonstrate how rural development and regenerative soil management can go hand in hand. Tristano Bacchetti De Gregoris, GOV4ALL Project coordinator and SAE Innova founder, said: “Our ambition is to put farmers at the centre of the innovation process, tapping into their vast knowledge to generate sustainable solutions that are beneficial for people and the planet.
