A timely correspondence in Nature Plants by Flavell et al. (2025), “Rethinking the need for field trials”, reinforces what the OFE community has long recognized: innovations must be tested under real farming conditions to understand their true value. The authors highlight the ongoing disconnect between controlled-environment plant science and the complex realities faced by farmers, and point to large, multi-site field testing networks (such as the IWYP and IWIN platforms) as essential to bridging this gap. Read this correspondence here.

The SIMONE project brings together farmers, researchers, and advisors across seven Living Labs in North-West Europe to co-design and evaluate agroecological practices. Through at least 50 farmer-led on-farm experiments, the project tests innovations in weed management, crop nutrition, and crop resilience while monitoring technical, environmental, and economic performance. SIMONE’s approach illustrates how OFE and Living Labs can work together to generate evidence directly from real farming conditions. Learn more here.

SOILCRATES, a Horizon Europe project, is strengthening farmer-driven innovation by establishing four regional Living Labs across Europe. Through collaboration among farmers, researchers, and local stakeholders, the project co-creates and tests soil-health practices such as diverse crop rotations, organic amendments, and improved irrigation directly on working farms. Learn more here.

ALLFacts is a European project creating farm-based living labs across Hesse, Germany, where farmers, researchers, and policymakers work side by side to test and demonstrate practices such as crop diversification, reduced tillage, and biodiversity-enhancing measures. By grounding innovation in real farm conditions and farmer experience, the project builds evidence on how these practices perform technically, environmentally, and economically. Learn more here.

Stuck at your desk over lunch and scrolling for something inspiring? Check out Erin Jackson’s short video from Colorado, where she works with 30 farmers across the High Plains to connect soil health with real management decisions. By sampling directly in farmers’ fields and sharing personalized soil health reports, her observational work helps farmers make sense of their own experiments while also shaping smarter soil policy.