Author: Daniela Russi
The European Commission is organising its 2nd Carbon Farming Roundtable on 23-24 September to present a study conducted by IEEP and partners.
The event is a follow up of the 1st Carbon Farming Roundtable, which was held on 9th October 2019 in Brussels. The first Roundtable brought together about 70 policy, scientific and legal experts, who discussed the main elements of Carbon Farming in Europe, with a particular emphasis on result-based mechanisms, i.e. payment schemes where farmers are remunerated based on the carbon benefits they provide through their agricultural practices.
During the 2nd Roundtable, the results of the study “Analytical support for the operationalisation of an EU Carbon Farming Initiative” will be presented. The study carried out by COWI, Ecologic and the Institute for European Environmental Policy, explored key issues, challenges, trade-offs and design options to develop result-based carbon farming mechanisms, based on the analysis of existing evidence on Carbon Farming initiatives across the EU.
The study focused on five thematic areas: agroforestry, peatlands, grassland, whole-farm audits and the maintenance and enhancement of soil organic carbon in mineral soils. Of these, the discussion in the 2ndRoundtable will mainly focus on carbon farming for peatlands and agroforestry, also with interventions on regenerative agriculture, which are considered the most promising thematic areas at this stage.
The study authors will present their results and best practice recommendations, which will be discussed by experts in the implementation and assessment of climate mitigation actions in agriculture, including experts on agricultural soil research and national carbon inventories, as well as practitioners with experience on the ground.
In addition, practitioners will present their Carbon Farming projects, and there will be time for discussion with an audience of more than one hundred experts. The experts’ feedback will feed into a guidance manual on Carbon Farming that the project team is currently preparing under the lead of IEEP.
Livestream:
Please note that participation in the event is by invitation only