On October 22, 2024, the first National Meeting on the Soil-X-Change project ("Fostering the cross-border knowledge exchange and co-creation on sustainable soil and farm management") was held in Sofia, which was attended by representatives of operational groups, Agricultural Academy, University of Architecture, civil engineering and geodesy and practitioners.

The participants are united by the common care and joint work to achieve the good condition of the soil and the long-term efforts in this direction.

The expert from the National Coordination Body (CB) of AKIS in Bulgaria, Mrs. Venislava Boyadzhieva, presented the upcoming call under the interventions of the CAP Strategic Plan for Agriculture and Rural Development for the period 2023-2027.  The rules for the intervention "Support for operational groups within the framework of the European Partnership for Innovation (EPI)" from the CAP Strategic plan 2023-2027, for which the call for projects will start within one month. The discussion focused on the difficulties encountered during the application and implementation of projects by the operational groups under the previous Rural Development Program (RDP) for the period 2014-2020 and on clarifying the various requirements and the simplification introduced in the procedure and rules for the future candidates.
 

Directions and areas of action  to achieve good soil health were discussed.     

To encourage participants to start a conversation in the light of the operational gropus, a set of good practices implemented by operational groups and from the field of soil health were presented.  The examples were selected to have an innovative element, digitalization and to be suitable for the Bulgarian specifics. The participants were informed how to find additional information on the two project calls of operational groups’ projects under the RDP 2014-2020 and how to find more information concerning the work of operational groups on the page of the European CAP Network.

Mrs. Petya Ivanova from the Association of Bulgarian No-Tillers presented the perspective of practitioners implementing a system of practices for soil health and thriving agro-ecosystems known as  regenerative agriculture, and emphasized that the whole set of actions needed to be carried out in its wholeness and indivisibility to achieve the desired field effect.

Bulgarian good practices in the field of soil health are to be described and implemented as part of the dashboard planned for elaboration within the Soil-X-Change, from which, in a convenient format, any interested farmer will be able to understand the approximate effect it will have in his holding the application of the chosen good practice.

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