Dr. José Alfonso Gómez, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of the Spanish National Research Council (IAS-CSIC), recently visited the School of Soil and Water Conservation at Beijing Forestry University(BFU). During his visit, he conducted field research at the Jixian Ecological Field Research Station in Shanxi Province and delivered an academic lecture titled "Do we have a way to improve the efficiency of investment in soil erosion research?" Vice President Zhang Zhiqiang and the Dean of the School of Soil and Water Conservation held an exchange meeting with Dr. Gómez. Professor Yu Yang accompanied him during the field visit and chaired the lecture, which was attended by more than 30 faculty members and students.

Dr. Gómez introduced the ecological subsidy mechanism under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This mechanism encourages farmers to implement ecological protection measures in exchange for agricultural subsidies, effectively turning them into active participants in soil and water conservation. He noted that despite decades of increasing financial investment in soil erosion control and ecological restoration across Europe, the region’s soil erosion problems have not been fundamentally resolved. There is no simple linear relationship between funding levels and outcomes, and there is an urgent need to systematically improve investment efficiency from both mechanistic and strategic perspectives.

Drawing on experience from the Sino-European collaborative projects SHui and TUdi, Dr. Gómez emphasized that the key to improving governance effectiveness lies in shifting research from a “paper-oriented” to a “problem-oriented” approach. He advocated for multi-stakeholder collaboration from the outset of projects, bringing together researchers, government managers, and farmers to jointly design solutions, thereby enhancing the feasibility and adaptability of conservation measures.

The lecture fostered lively academic discussion and contributed significantly to deepening the school’s international collaboration and advancing research in related fields.

Written by Yu Yang, Zhang Fan
Translated and edited by Song He
Reviewed by Yu Yangyang