MARKAPP – Increase awareness of the importance of good soil health and develop training packages to facilitate the use of the soil care app "Hur mår min jord?" in teaching and advisory work

The main goal of the project is to increase awareness of the importance of good soil health to achieve high production and avoid environmental problems in agriculture.

Two important sub-goals in the project are that with the soil care app "Hur mår min jord?" as a basis, develop training packages for different target groups and design new modules that can be used and added to the app. The soil care app is based on research at the Dept. of Soil and Environment at SLU.

With the training packages, we can reach more users who can contribute to the vital soil conservation work for better soil health.The most important target groups are the farmers and their advisers, who are the ones who work with land care issues in their daily activities. The Swedish Farmers´ Association organizes many study groups and is an important target group.

Teachers and students at, for example, agricultural high schools are other essential target groups who benefit from more knowledge and tools for working with soil health.In the project, we develop new modules that can be included in the soil care app.

These are launched annually at the major agricultural fairs to keep the interest in land care issues and the app at a high level. During the project, we will involve some users as beta testers to evaluate the training material.

The new modules in the app and the training packages are also presented at advisory conferences, local agricultural days, social media and the agricultural oriented press.