Proposed activities should:

• Define and map homogeneous soil-use and pedo-climatic regions in EU arable lands, leveraging existing Earth observation datasets and further develop (iMAP) coefficients linking farming practices to soil health indicators (aligning with the Soil Mission Implementation Plan and proposed Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience). Work should focus on soil biodiversity, carbon capture and storage, GHG emissions, and water infiltration/retention, considering both CAP-supported and other farming practices.
• Quantify the impact of farming practices on soil health across major pedo-climatic regions and arable crops in the EU. Establish clear links between farming practices, land use (arable, pasture, etc.) and types of crops for each soil use and pedo-climatic region, considering the defining soil and climate properties. Focus should be on identifying synergies and trade-offs among these practices, supported by refined impact estimates under current and potential adoption scenarios at the EU level. Practices should comply with GAEC standards and their integration with other CAP interventions, such as “Eco-Schemes” or/and “Agri-environment-climate measures” under Pillar II, but not exclusively.
• Develop and expand an inventory of farming practices (e.g., organic fertilisation, no-tillage) that support GAECs and Eco-Schemes for soil health, as outlined in national CAP Strategic Plans. Building on the work of the Joint Research Centre, the inventory should cover various farming systems and alternative approaches, including organic, agroecological, and regenerative practices.
• Select a set of soil health indicators (SOC, water retention capacity, acidity, conductivity, biodiversity, soil erosion, nutrients, diffuse contamination, etc.) considering the Mission Soil Implementation Plan, the SML and the results produced by the Mission portfolio of projects, to quantify farming practices effects.
• Enhance and expand existing online databases and visualisations by integrating data from previous activities (e.g., pedo-climatic regions, arable lands, cropping systems) to improve user accessibility. Streamline and automate updates with new knowledge, focusing on EU primary scientific literature, by leveraging AI to accelerate meta-analysis and drive continuous improvement.
• Develop a dynamic, potentially automatically updated model to compare, analyse and evaluate scenarios assessing the impacts of individual farming practices (e.g., conventional tillage vs. no-tillage, organic amendment vs. mineral fertilisation, etc.) as well as integrated farming strategies (e.g., conservation, organic, agroecology, regenerative).
• Identify and analyse the limitations of map, indicators, model, measurements, and results obtained. Produce a gap analysis to address remaining soil health challenges in Member States, considering what is proposed in national CAP Strategic Plans, and which future R&I could fill.