Statement Exploratory analysis of carbon farming systems in 9 countries on the European continent
This report is part of EJP Soil project Road4Schemes which aims to integrate research into the design and implementation of policy on carbon farming. The objectives of Road4Schemes were:
(1) to assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing and planned schemes for carbon farming and additional Ecosystem Service (ESS) payments, including respective tools for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV); (2) assess stakeholders’ perceptions and preferences with respect to strategies for scheme design and policy drivers and barriers; and (3) deliver a roadmap for developing and implementing context-based schemes for carbon farming and additional ESS payments. The Road4Schemes consortium comprised multiple EU member states such as Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, and Italy, as well as Switzerland and Turkey. This deliverable is associated with work package 4: ‘A roadmap for improving carbon farming schemes’.
In the context of this project, carbon farming schemes are defined as operational programs that aim to sequester carbon in the soil or avoid the release of GHG emissions from soils (supply) while compensating farmers or other land users for their efforts through a range of business models (demand).
In this report we zoom out from these operational carbon schemes to all possible incentives or actors that influence their functioning (European and regional policies, public opinion, agricultural education, measurement methods etc.). We refer to the dynamic interaction between carbon farming schemes, diverse stakeholders, and incentives within the social-ecological context as the carbon farming system. In all involved partner countries, various actors are working towards an operational carbon farming system that is able to effectively achieve targets such as climate change mitigation, adaptation, soil health, biodiversity conservation. Thus, rather than comparing the current carbon farming system, this report presents the results of a international analysis of the development towards effective carbon farming systems.
