“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together". African proverb.
Launched in September 2022, ORCaSa is a Horizon Europe initiative that aims to bring together international stakeholders working on techniques for capturing and storing carbon in the soil.
The project seeks to address the issue of increasing carbon emissions from human activities, which have led to a disruption in the balance of organic carbon absorbed and stored in the soil to support plant growth.
Over the next three years, ORCaSa expands the scope to include not only agricultural soil carbon but also soil carbon stored in forests, pastures, wetlands, and urban areas. Coordinated by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), the project is powered by Impact4Soil, a state-of-the-art platform that will collect knowledge on soil carbon and make it available to the public.
At the forefront of the Soil Carbon International Research Consortium (IRC) that has emerged from the ORCaSa project, stands the firm belief that a Soil Deal for Europe is needed if we want to meet our climate goals – healthy soils, healthy planet.
Supporting the ORCaSa’s vision is the 5-year Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), superseding the SRIA under CIRCASA, whose sole focus was on agricultural soils. Taking things a step further, the IRC expands its scope to include all soils, and at the same time advance carbon solutions through research funding, alignment of research activities and knowledge sharing. Aided by Impact4Soil, a dedicated online platform for collecting and sharing knowledge on soil carbon, the Soil Carbon IRC and its international partners (regional nodes) aim to provide better access to research, methods and practices related to soil carbon.
This is where you come in if you are one of the following:
