Carbon Farming: compensating farmers for climate friendly management – Netherlands
The sequestration of atmospheric carbon in organic, agricultural soils can be influenced by soil management. Natural processes in the soil make soil it the biggest carbon sink on land. ‘Carbon Farming’ focuses on agricultural soil management that optimizes these processes and therefore the amount of atmospheric carbon that is sequestered in the soil.
Sustainable innovation pilots activities:
ZLTO is facilitating farmers to develop a compensation system together with Udea and other business partners, aiming to generate value for them and the organic supermarket Ekoplaza. They will:
a) help define the compensation model that will be developed in the Carbon Farming project;
b) analyse which data is required to feed the compensation model and which are the available data sources;
c) develop a prototype to calculate the effects of the carbon sequestration measures;
d) conduct prototype testing and evaluation;
e) optimise the compensation model;
f) introduce it to the field;
g) refine the solution and the model in an iterative manner.
The contribution of the pilot to the three sustaibanility pillars of Ploutos will be the following:
Economic
Creating additional income and building resilient soils, which results in less fluctuation in yields.
Social
Appreciation of farmers’ efforts regarding ecosystem services and their role in fighting climate change
Environmental
Increasing soil carbon contents has positive effects on biodiversity, climate change and overall health and resilience of soils.
The contributing partners are the following:
