Supporting Europe's transition to climate-neutral farming

Abstract

Supporting Europe's transition to climate-neutral farming We hear from ClieNFarms, an Innovation Action project funded by the European Commission to support the European Green Deal and achieve climate-neutral farming across Europe’s agricultural industry by 2050. Farmers play a critical role in ensuring food sustainability. They are responsible for producing the food we eat, but farming practices can significantly impact the environment and the long-term availability of resources. Although agriculture contributes 10.3% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, it has strong potential for climate mitigation through soil carbon sequestration and storage, albedo effects, and the reduction of greenhouse gases etc. (1) More real-life experiments, clarification, and support are required for climate neutrality and climate-resilient farming. One recent example is the EU carbon removal certification framework proposal, which ‘aims to scale up carbon removal activities and fight greenwashing by empowering businesses to show their action in this field’.(2) As well as being an essential initial step, the proposal further solidified the importance of farming practices and the need for sustainable carbon farming solutions.