Open Call for Farmers to contribute to the LILAS4SOILS Project

Open Call for Farmers to contribute to the LILAS4SOILS Project

Type of grant: Cascade funding

Opening date: 11 March 2025

Deadline model: single-stage

Deadline date: 16 May 2025 23:59 (Brussels time)

Status: Open for submission

Expected duration of participation: LILAS4SOILS project promotes Carbon Farming Practices to enhance soil health and mitigate climate impacts in Mediterranean and Southern EU regions. Through this call, 50 farmers will be selected, receiving €5,000/year (for 3 years), technical assistance, and training within five Living Labs, co-creating solutions to measure soil organic carbon changes and develop sustainable farming business models.

Total funding available: €750,000.00

Project acronym: LILAS4SOILS

Full name of the EU funded project: Fostering Carbon Farming Practices through LIving LAbS in the Mediterranean and Southern EU for the healthy future of European SOILS

Grant agreement number: 101157414

Topic: HORIZON-MISS-2023-SOIL-01-09 - Carbon farming in living labs

Submission & evaluation process

LILAS4SOILS project promotes Carbon Farming Practices to enhance soil health and mitigate climate impacts in Mediterranean and Southern EU regions. Through this call, 50 farmers will be selected, receiving €5,000/year (for 3 years), technical assistance, and training within five Living Labs, co-creating solutions to measure soil organic carbon changes and develop sustainable farming business models.

Eligible Regions

Farm or field selected for Carbon Farming must be located in the following regions

• Greece: all regions

• France: Occitanie, PACA and Nouvelle-Aquitaine

• Israel:

1. Northern District: Western, Upper and Lower Galilee, Jezreel, Beit She'an and Jordan Valleys
2. Haifa District: Haifa and the Krayot, Carmel Region, Northern Coastal Plain
3. Central District: Sharon Region, Shfela (Lowlands), Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area
4. Jerusalem District: Western Jerusalem and neighbourhoods within the Green Line
5. Southern District: Negev Region, Eshkol Regional Area, Southern Coastal Plain

1. Non-Eligible Areas (Not Covered by EU Funding): West Bank (Judea and Samaria), East Jerusalem and Golan Heights

• Italy: Po valley (Pianura Padano-Veneta)

• Portugal: Beira Baixa; fields located closer to Spain/Portugal border would be preferred

• Spain: Castilla y Leon; fields located closer to Spain/Portugal border would be preferred

Submission process

Interested farmers are invited to submit their applications by 16th May 2025 (23:59 PM CET), using this link:

LILAS4SOILS Farmers Selection Application Form

You will be able to complete the form in your language. Incomplete applications or applications that do not comply with the selection criteria will be automatically rejected.

Selection process

Complete applications will be notified of their acceptance and evaluated by a committee including representatives of EIT Food, Living Lab Leaders in each country and an external evaluator.

The evaluation committee reserves the right to select a group of farmers that represent a mix of cropping systems and farming practices that complements the current LILAS4SOILS sites and helps achieve the goals of the project. EIT

The project reserves the right to relaunch the call if the present selection process would not yield satisfactory results.

The selection process will consist of three stages:

1. The evaluation committee will shortlist farmers based on the application;
2. Living Lab Leaders will contact shortlisted farmers for a phone interview to clarify or collect additional information;
3. Living Lab leaders will visit the fields of farmers selected after the phone interviews to assess the carbon sequestration potential of the farm.

All applications will be evaluated using transparent selection criteria and the results of the call will be directly communicated to all farmers participating in the call. The selected farmers will be required to sign an agreement with EIT Food in English. Translations in national languages will be provided as reference.

Selection criteria defined for this call are:

a. Registered company located in a LILAS4SOILS country (France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Spain)

b. Minimum 1 ha of land must be dedicated to the application of Carbon Farming Practices

c. Farm or field selected for Carbon Farming must be located in the regions of the LILAS4SOILS Living Lab (see annex 1)

a. A degree of familiarity with regenerative agriculture and carbon farming is desirable and will be preferred

b. Farmers whose main source of income comes from farming (“professional farmers”) will be preferred

c. Farmers that have experience with peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing initiatives will be preferred

Selection Timeline

1. Open call launched : 10-11th March 2025
2. Application deadline: 16th May 2025
3. Announcement of shortlisted farmers: 6th June 2025
4. Interviews and field visits: 9th June – 18th July 2025
5. Announcement of selected farmers: 1 st August 2025
6. MoU signed: By 30th September

Further information

For further information, please refer to the information and guidelines published in the call website:

Open Call to Farmers - Now Live

It is highly recommended that interested applicants read ALL the documentation related to the Open Call. Applicants are encouraged to contact LILAS4SOILSsupport team for additional information and guidance. Contact email adresses are available in the call guidelines document published in the aforementioned call website.

Task description

Selected farmers are expected to commit to the following conditions:

a. Provide a field of a minimum size of 1 ha for the implementation of Carbon Farming Practices

b. Provide historical data on the identified field such as production history and farming practices (i.e. fertilization and amendments, irrigation practices, tillage practices, crop rotations), and previous soil analysis

c. Discuss and agree with LILAS4SOILS Living Lab Leaders on which CFPs will be applied and maintain the agreed practices during the life of the project (3 to 4 years)

d. Work with the LILAS4SOILS Living Lab Leaders to collect soil health monitoring data and provide updates/feedback on the application of CFPs to adapt the project activities as needed (e.g. adjust timings of sampling, change combination of CFP applied, etc.)

e. Agree to share soil monitoring data in an anonymised way for learning and dissemination purposes

f. Provide access to the site(s) to selected companies specialised in Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV) of SOC to test their technology and provide related data

g. Participate in person to workshops or meetings organised by the Living Labs to exchange practices and experiences (estimated to 2 events per year) with other farmers and stakeholders

h. If selected as Lighthouse (i.e. sites for demonstration of best practices), lead field visits for training, peer-to-peer learning and communication related to improving soil health.