Unveiling soil stewardship: plural values in the management of the Montado agro-silvo-pastoral system in Portugal

Farmers’ and landowners’ decisions affecting soil management reflect not only economic motivations related to productivity, but also deeper principles and values associated with soil health. However, such values are often implicit and not explicitly acknowledged in decision-making processes. In complex agro-silvo-pastoral systems like the Montado in Southern Iberia, where multiple productive and climatic pressures intersect, soil often remains hidden in farmers’ strategic priorities. This study investigates the values and motivations behind soil regeneration efforts in the Montado, a multifunctional system capable of delivering a wide range of ecosystem services but increasingly threatened by degradation and decline. Drawing on interviews with farmers and landowners, we developed a value-driven understanding of soil health through the analytical dimensions of care, knowledge, and agency. While Montado farmers show strong commitment to soil health and have sought out education and innovative practices, they often lack long-term planning capacity, technical support, and feel poorly supported by current policy instruments. This results in fragmented and short-term soil management strategies. At the same time, key stewardship values including place attachment, self-determination and responsibility, emerge as powerful motivators for regenerative practices. Yet these values alone are not sufficient to translate into effective agency when the agricultural knowledge and innovation system (AKIS) remains weak and uncoordinated. The case of Montado underscores the need for governance frameworks that recognize both instrumental and non-instrumental values, integrating them into policy and advisory systems. Doing so could better align support structures with farmers’ lived realities, enabling more coherent and scalable soil regeneration efforts. • Policy misalignment and farm management decisions hinder long-term soil regeneration. • Soil stewardship is the result of interaction between knowledge, agency and care. • A relational value approach offers insights into farmers' considerations over soils. • There is the need for reliable and integrated AKIS for soil health management.