Agriculture stakeholders see a shift towards carbon farming in the European Union positively but emphasise that details over financial incentives for EU farmers must be determined for its proper rollout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall objective of carbon farming \u2013 a new buzzword in agriculture \u2013 is to increase the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) stored in the soil and thereby reduce its presence in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, farmers aim to contribute to efforts to tackle climate change by using various agricultural methods ranging from crop rotation, cover crops, and reduced tillage to precision nitrogen application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European Commission has said it plans to launch a carbon farming initiative by the end of 2021. A carbon removal certification mechanism already announced in the Circular Economic Action Plan will be presented by 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EU farmers say they have already been voluntarily applying such practices, and there is an \u201cundeniable will\u201d to continue so. However, they want to make sure that carbon farming\u2019s practical implementation will not result in an additional burden for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of the EU farmers and cooperatives\u2019 association Copa-Cogeca, said that if carbon farming were to be applied universally, farmers must see the extra costs that will incur compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe carbon farming initiative and the certification scheme for carbon removals could become an additional source of income for farmers committed to reaching environmental goals. However, it can easily become a financial and administrative burden for them, increasing their costs, potentially reducing their productivity, and lowering their incomes,\u201d Pesonen told EURACTIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pesonen explained that farmers should not be rewarded through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as this would only lead to a redistribution of resources and ignore the fact that farmers and foresters already make a significant contribution to carbon sequestration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he stressed that market-based carbon farming schemes could contribute to climate change mitigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis involves the development of a carbon market for market-based carbon crediting schemes, where farmers and foresters are remunerated for their ecosystem service, in accordance with the relevant IPCC guidelines,\u201d he said, referring to the international panel on climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, he said it must be made sure that carbon farming and carbon credits do not become a default mechanism for big and multinational enterprises to offset their emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe industry must undertake their own efforts to reduce emissions and not fully rely on farmers\u2019 efforts to sequestrate carbon,\u201d he said, adding that all social actors should work together for a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n C\u00e9lia Nyssens, an agriculture expert at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), voiced similar concerns, saying farmers\u2019 carbon credits should not be used by \u201ccompanies like Shell or Microsoft to get to green their own names on the back of farmers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nyssens said there is also uncertainty when it comes to carbon liability in cases of extreme natural phenomena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf farmers are to sequester carbon in their soil and produce a carbon credit for that and sell it, and then there\u2019s, for example, a big flooding event or a big drought, and some of that carbon is lost back to the atmosphere, who is liable?\u201d Nyssens wondered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The expert explained that carbon farming is not something new as these agricultural practices have already been used by farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just kind of going back to the good practices of our ancestors, but with new scientific understanding of how these practices benefit soils,\u201d she told EURACTIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An EU official told EURACTIV that a critical step for carbon farming is establishing a regulatory certification framework based on \u201crobust accounting rules\u201d for high-quality, sustainable carbon removals from natural ecosystems and \u201cindustrial solutions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EU official said that land managers are rewarded for their management practice or the actual amount of carbon sequestered via carbon farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe revenue from carbon farming becomes an additional income source from which land managers can benefit in addition to their traditional products such as food and biomass,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Land managers, the official added, would at the same time benefit in many cases from the advantages of higher quality land and have somewhat better production performance and higher resilience to climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFinancial incentives that can come from public or private sources will support the large-scale development of carbon farming practices across member states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The private sector has already taken initiatives testing carbon farming on the ground. For example, last summer, agrifood giant Bayer launched its own \u201cCarbon Programme\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty-seven farmers across seven countries in the EU and beyond (France, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, UK, and Ukraine) participate in a three-year project led by Bayer focusing on climate-smart farming practices like using cover crops and tillage reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This implementation of new practices will be continuously monitored and improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the company, farmers, experts, and food value chain players work together in a carbon farming lab where they jointly test activities and generate learnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Considering that currently, there is no carbon market for farmers to sell credits, the companies have focused on working with governments and other companies to drive climate-smart agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn line with the objectives of the EU Green Deal, we established the Bayer Carbon Program to actively contribute to the development of carbon farming activities in Europe. We are working across public and private sectors along the value chain, embracing innovation and putting farmers at the centre of our efforts,\u201d Liam Condon, president of the crop science division at Bayer, told EURACTIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This collaboration, he added, will help decarbonise the European food system in a way that works for farmers, the environment and consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe main idea is to reward growers for adopting climate-smart farming practices like using cover crops, tillage reduction, crop rotations and precision nitrogen application. These activities sequester carbon in the soil while improving soil health, resilience and productivity and reducing emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Agriculture stakeholders see a shift towards carbon farming in the European Union positively but emphasise that details over financial incentives for EU farmers must be determined for its proper rollout. The overall objective of carbon farming \u2013 a new buzzword in agriculture \u2013 is to increase the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) stored in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"In practice, by using various agricultural methods ranging from crop rotation, cover crops, and reduced tillage to precision nitrogen application, farmers aim to contribute to tackling climate change","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[6630,10416],"supplier":[93,2619,19345,2317,4571,5585,3345],"class_list":["post-100528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-agriculture","tag-circulareconomy","supplier-bayer-ag","supplier-copa-cogeca","supplier-eu-farmers-and-cooperatives-association-copa-cogeca","supplier-european-commission","supplier-european-environmental-bureau","supplier-european-union","supplier-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-ipcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100528"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=100528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Rewards outside CAP<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
EU official: incentives from public or private sources<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What is the industry doing<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n