The main goal of RESCHEDULE is to develop science-based and locally-adapted solutions that improve the resilience of smallholder farms to climate change, with challenges including soil organic matter and nutrient depletion, desertification and erosion.
The project’s specific objectives include:
- Evaluation of strategies that effectively restore soil health and improve the resilience of agricultural production to climate change in different environmental settings and cropping systems. The strategies are aligned with agroecology principles (no tillage, intercropping, tolerant to abiotic factors genotypes, soil microbiota).
- Elucidating the role of soil microbiota in restoring/maintaining ecosystem services (e.g., crop yield, nutrient cycling) and developing an improved understanding around the stability and interaction of microbial communities under different scenarios.
- Expanding the outcomes of divergent adaptation practices on ecosystem services at timescales relevant to adaptive farm management (>10 yrs) through model projections under different climate change scenarios.
- Development and evaluation of indicators (ecological, social, economic) of smallholder farms resilience and sustainability that address complexities and weaknesses.
- Enhancing the engagement of small farmers and other key stakeholders and actively involving them in the co-construction of all steps and validation of interventions.
- Raising stakeholder awareness and access to knowledge, including through an on-farm, user-friendly DSS.
- Upscaling the RESCHEDULE outcomes to other Mediterranean areas through a cross-country dissemination strategy and a DSS that account for differences in environmental, economic and social factors.
- Integration of the science-based knowledge and communication of outcomes to local, regional, and (trans)national decision-makers and institutions, improving the opportunities to incorporate them into policy tools.