Do you know about an interesting sustainable soil management practice that improves soil health? 

FAO, in the ambit of the International Year of Soils, is calling for your contribution to the farmers’ soil practices video contest. The central theme of the contest is: Farmers’ sustainable soil management practices for boosting healthy soils. The deadline for submissions is 19 October 2015.

With an estimated 33% of global soil moderately to highly degraded, time is running out. It can take up to 1 000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil, and yet up to 50 000 square kilometres of soil, an area around the size of Costa Rica, is lost every year due to deforestation, unsustainable land use and management practices, overgrazing and climate change. Imagine, 11 hectares of soil are sealed under expanding cities every hour in Europe. 

The promotion of sustainable soil and land management is central to ensuring a productive food system, improved rural livelihoods and a healthy environment for future generations. 

Can I participate?

Are you enthusiastic about sustainable soil management practices? Are you a smallholder farmer or an agricultural service provider who works directly with farmers on soil management issues? Are you an organization which generates practical knowledge in collaboration with farmers or an individual researcher investigating the topic?

Farmers and people working with them are invited to shoot a video and share sustainable soil management practices which are being used in their community and have positive impacts on the health of our soil.

The aim of the video contest is to offer farmers the opportunity to share locally developed solutions to improve soil health and to document and share these practices with people around the world through FAO’s Technologies and practices for small agricultural producers (TECA) platform.

Prizes

The videos will be evaluated for the technical validity of the practice (step by step description of the practice), content and creativity.

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places wil be awarded 3 000 USD, 2 000 USD, and 1 000 USD, respectively. The winning videos will also be promoted and broadcast through FAO social media and partners’ channels.

Moreover, authors of videos presenting relevant and valuable technical content will be contacted by the FAO-TECA Team and will have the opportunity to develop the content of their video, in collaboration with the TECA team, into a publication to be included and promoted through the TECA Knowledge base.

Videos must be submitted before Monday 19 October 2015 at 12:00 (CEST).