Q6: What is the current state of play in paying farmers for
environmental services?
While there are a couple types of conservation payment and biodiversity schemes out there, many recent efforts are focusing
on soil quality and soil carbon as an ‘environmental service’ that agriculture provides. Land-based sectors including agriculture
have recently gained attention because of their potential as a carbon sink.. This is very exciting as a possible revenue source for
agriculture and for farmers individually. But it has a lot of very complicated implications and assumptions behind it.
As we know, today agriculture is not
included in the regulatory or compliance
emissions markets, especially carbon
ones, because the sector is very
fragmented and it is difficult to measure
individual operation's emissions. So,
agriculture has been left out. It also
serves other purposes such as food
production and eco-system services. So,
there are clearly multiple reasons why it
has not been included so far.
Moving forward, if we want to pay
farmers for eco-system services, carbon
sequestration seems to be the most
interesting option on the table – as
voluntary carbon markets have already
incorporated projects in the forestry
sector. And in the last couple of years
voluntary carbon markets have even
developed methodologies to try to
estimate soil carbon sequestration. So,
in addition to reducing GHG emissions
through fuel or fertilizer efficiency
it’s also about improving carbon
sequestration in the roots and soil.
We know this is a dynamic and longterm process to build up soil’s organic
carbon. Sequestration is a very
complicated science relating to the
microbial, farming and tillage practices,
your crop mix, your soil and climate type.
The big question is how far and how fast
this new carbon market can develop?
Currently there are only a few projects
based on soil carbon sequestration in
the voluntary carbon markets but we
expect more projects going forward.
We have to be cautious that we continue
to reduce emissions at the same time
and not overrely on soil carbon removal.
This is a very important ongoing
discussion.
The recent IPCC report, Sixth Assessment
Report, Climate Change 2021: The
Physical Science Basis , continues to
build our understanding of climate
change complexity. The global food
system accounts for a quarter of total
emissions especially non-CO2 gases.
. Today, the volatility and extremes of
climate change begs new questions
about the extent to which AFOLU can
be a natural carbon sink. This means
that the land carbon sink (including
agricultural soils) has to be better
managed to counterbalance that
volatility and variability (fluxes) that
we’re seeing with climate change.
Furthermore, we can all see that global
warming is increasing in the frequency
and intensity of climate and weather
extremes -- be it flooding in Belgium or
forest fires in Oregon. Our job is to make
agriculture more resilient to climate
change by restoring and protecting
natural ecosystems and improving soil
health and soil carbon.
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