The JRC farming practices evidence library

The JRC Farming Practices Evidence Library is an online platform providing user-friendly access to synthesized scientific evidence on the environmental, climate, and productivity impacts of diverse agricultural practices. The Evidence Library provides accessible, science-based evidence to analyse and compare data on farming practices impacts to policymakers, farmers, and researchers, while also summarizing key research findings. The Library facilitates the exploration of a comprehensive data collection derived from a systematic review of over 600 meta-analyses, summarizing the effects of various farming practices on multiple sustainability outcomes. Users can interactively filter results by farming practice categories, impact metrics, and other contextual variables, generating customized evidence maps and accessing detailed summaries of individual meta-analyses. The platform also highlights key quantitative effect size estimates and identifies knowledge gaps to guide future research and policy development. The interactive dashboard is backed by wiki-like pages reporting detailed information regarding the main results, factor influencing the effects and summaries of the original meta-analyses. This evidence-based tool supports informed decision-making in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and other relevant EU policy frameworks. The library can also serve as a basis for sustainable agriculture benchmarking systems, supporting certification efforts aligned with the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. Furthermore, researchers, farmers’ associations, and NGOs involved in sustainable agriculture would rely on this knowledge to gain insights into the effects of different farming practices on the environment and the climate. On the basis of the Library, the scientific community can also map knowledge gaps and address future research efforts.