Sustainable agricultural soil management in Austria: tasks, knowledge needs, challenges and barriers

As part of the European Joint Programme on Agricultural Soil Management (EJP Soil) Programme, an online questionnaire was used to reveal the views and opinions of different stakeholders on sustainable agricultural soil management. The results offered valuable insights into stakeholders' perspectives and highlighted the most pressing issues. The importance of knowledge exchange was emphasised, as was the need for increased financial resources to implement climate-friendly management practices and for adopting adequate laws and guidelines. The main challenges identified by all stakeholder groups were to avoid soil erosion, maintain or increase soil organic carbon, prevent soil sealing and create an optimal soil structure. However, for certain topics, the overall opinion of the stakeholder groups varied substantially due to differing knowledge, perspectives and focus among the participants (e.g. farmers focussed on productivity and economic persistence, whereas scientists were interested in the soil profile, measurements or calculations of emissions). Overall, it became clear that the enormous amount of knowledge available needs more and better dissemination. This calls for new and innovative communication approaches.