Enhancing soil health through value-chain based business models

Soil is a key asset that is essential for agriculture and food production and that requires continuous investments from land managers to keep soils in a good condition and providing important ecosystem services. However, land managers generally have little incentive to invest in healthy soils, as they cannot sufficiently capture the value generated by these ecosystem services. This is why, globally, communities are investigating the feasibility of setting up public and/or private financial mechanisms to overcome this problem. The aim of the PhD is to explore the development of successful value chain based business models that are enhancing soil health and to investigate how such business models can be combined with public incentive schemes in the EU.