{"id":7584,"date":"2021-06-16T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www-dev.promar-international.com\/?p=7584"},"modified":"2021-06-16T12:59:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:59:00","slug":"how-can-farmers-harness-carbon-sequestration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-dev.promar-international.com\/it\/how-can-farmers-harness-carbon-sequestration\/","title":{"rendered":"How can farm managers harness carbon sequestration to become heroes of Net Zero?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Luke Briggs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agricultural businesses are uniquely placed to play a vital role in tackling the climate crisis, with healthy functioning ecosystems in farmland taking up and storing a significant amount of carbon in soils and vegetation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evolution of Countryside Stewardship to ELMs is set to assist farm businesses along this sustainable journey. While this transition may come with financial uncertainties, its potential role in delivering win-wins in climate change adaptation could be invaluable. Notably, there is the opportunity to enhance on-farm carbon sequestration and to support the carbon commitments of the private and public sector, whilst delivering co-benefits to wider-ecosystem services and biodiversity. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What does carbon sequestration mean in an agricultural setting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Put simply, carbon sequestration is the technical term for the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide (or for carbon capture). This provides the ability to balance emissions (carbon leaving the farm) with carbon storage on the farm. UK farm businesses are responsible for over 70% of the UK\u2019s land mass and are therefore in a unique position to harness opportunities for optimising carbon sequestration and to be part of the Net Zero solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The carbon challenge ahead is a significant one. The agricultural sector needs to close an 11-gigaton greenhouse gas gap between projected emissions in 2050 and the target level needed to hold global warming below 2o<\/sup>C, as set out in The Paris Agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst a multi-faceted approach is crucial to tackling this, it starts with land stewardship<\/strong>. It is the best-understood and most cost-effective carbon dioxide removal method. There are two main ways in which carbon is stored, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plant biomass<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

All farms currently have biomass that is already sequestering carbon. The quality and quantity of plant biomass does, however, vary significantly and has been impacted on UK farmland due to losses of hedgerows and unmanaged pockets of land. This is linked to the general trend of expansion in farm and field size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Measures to enhance the quality and quantity of plant biomass on farms include features such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n