Welcome to the fourth edition of the MRV4SOC newsletter!

Over the past months, MRV4SOC shifted from “setting the scene” to showing the method at work, connecting baselines, models and measurements into a practical MRV pathway for soil organic carbon across Europe.

From the policy-facing discussions at the European Carbon Farming Summit in Dublin, to the scientific exchanges at EGU 2025 in Vienna, to the presentation of the results of its first phase at the European Mission Soil Week 2025, in Aarhus, Denmark.

Over the past period, consortium updates documented steady progress across demo sites, while the project’s technical outputs continued to mature.

In December 2025, a timely General Assembly in Florence, right as soil policy focus became more and more central, helped grounding the project’s “hybrid modelling” ambition in real fields and real practices during the visit to the Fagna experimental farm.

In this interview, we meet Dr. Maria Fantappiè, PhD, Lead Technologist at CREA-AA (Florence, Italy) and partner of the European project MRV4SOC. Dr. Fantappiè also shares her personal motivation and passion for soils, highlighting their fundamental role in food production, water regulation, biodiversity, and climate resilience, as well as the growing public awareness driven by new European policies on carbon farming and soil health.

In this interview, we speak with Bas van Wesemael, Emeritus Professor in Physical Geography at UCLouvain (Belgium) and partner of the European project MRV4SOC. Professor van Wesemael explains his role within MRV4SOC, focusing on data acquisition, remote sensing, and greenhouse gas modelling, and reflects on his long-standing research on soil organic carbon, a topic that has shaped his academic career since his PhD.

This conversation highlights how soil organic carbon represents a powerful win-win solution for climate action, sustainable farming, and soil health.