Agriculture plays a crucial role in our fight against climate change. Carbon footprints offer a way to measure and manage the environmental impact of farming practices. Ideally, they help identify emission sources, facilitate decision-making, and steer businesses and individuals towards more environmentally friendly behaviours; but they also come with their own challenges. Unlike many other sectors, agriculture is both a source and a sink for greenhouse gases. The large variability in production systems, the multiple interconnected products from a single farm, and the need for primary data collection make it challenging.
Opportunities
- Improved sustainability: Climate footprints help farmers identify practices that reduce emissions, such as cover cropping, and adopted fertilizer management. Usually, those techniques not only lower climate footprints, but enhance soil health, increase biodiversity, and improve water retention as well.
- Reducing climate risks: The main goal of climate-smart farming is to increase the capability of farms to adapt to climate change. Good climate footprints together with climate-smart advisory services can support farmers in their decisions.
- Cost savings and incentives: Optimizing input use not only cuts emissions but also reduces costs. Also, incentives can be linked to carbon footprints. Governments and organizations are developing more incentives for sustainable practices to reduce agricultural emissions.
Limits
- Data accuracy and costs: Accurate primary data is key to a meaningful carbon footprint. Collecting and analysing this data can be challenging and costly; inaccuracies can lead to misleading results and ineffective mitigation strategies.
- Standardization Issues or “the many footprints problem”: There is no compulsory standard for climate footprints in agriculture, inconsistent emissions measurement and reporting is the result. There are currently around 100 tools in Europe alone. This variety and lack of standardization can make it difficult to compare results across different farms and regions. Thus, chosen methods heavily influence GHG-emission results.
- Method bias: While calculating emissions per unit of product offers several advantages for the industry, such as comparing suppliers and taking responsibility for one’s supply chain only, farmers may benefit more from a whole-farm approach, which is better suited for assessing the overall environmental performance of a farm and identifying areas for improvement.
- Tunnel vision on carbon: Carbon assessments focus on greenhouse gas emissions from farming activities but may overlook other ecosystem services farms provide, such as biodiversity and soil health. Hence, a comprehensive approach is needed to capture the full environmental impact of agriculture, to avoid trade-offs.
Beyond the Numbers
Agriculture is highly context-specific, influenced by factors like location and historical practices. Organic farms, in particular, should focus on their holistic approach, avoiding a tunnel vision on carbon emissions and considering factors like animal welfare, biodiversity, nutrient cycles, and social sustainability. By combining quantitative and qualitative data, farmers can play a pivotal role in mitigating climate change and promoting a more sustainable future.
About the Author:
Bioland Beratung GmbH is a German consulting firm specializing in providing advice to farmers and businesses involved in organic agriculture. In OrganicClimateNET, it works as a National Coordinator.
