In Dublin to discuss carbon farming

Early March, Dublin hosted the second edition of the Carbon Farming Summit. This event gathered farmers, researchers, policy-makers, political representatives, and professionals working on regenerative agriculture and carbon farming practices.

The Summit fostered exchanges on actionable strategies for implementing carbon farming, raising awareness of the importance of soil and its role in climate mitigation and adaptation, but also on regenerative agriculture and carbon market solutions for establishing climate-neutral food systems.

Over the three days, the ORCaSa team participated in several presentation sessions and roundtable discussions. These exchanges helped to raise awareness of the ORCaSa project, as well as the Soil Carbon International Research Consortium and its missions and values.

Healthy soil now and in the future

‘Soil carbon is a global issue’, says Suzanne Reynders, coordinator fo ORCaSa and Soil Carbon IRC. ‘The response we need is a common scientific vision which is supported by the Soil Carbon IRC and its unique scientific community, but also its shared data, practices, MRV methodologies, and adapted business models.’

Thierry Caquet, recently appointed Vice-President of INRAE, was also in Dublin to present on the central role of healthy, carbon-rich soils and how this is being addressed in current political processes and at the Conferences of the Parties (COPs).

Held in Paris in 2015, the COP21 was a key moment in raising international awareness of soil issues and the importance of protecting it. Since then, Europe has set targets for 2050, with almost 90 policy actions underway, 62 of which have already been completed.

The Soil Carbon IRC is part of this growing movement by focusing not only on agricultural soils but also forests, pastures, wetlands, and urban areas – soil is considered in all its diversity.

Since its launch in November 2023, during the European Soil Mission Week, the Soil Carbon IRC counts more than 108 signatories. ‘We want to speed up soil carbon practices, and we want political and industrial decision-makers to be involved in this change’, explains Suzanne Reynders. ‘But we need to be financially independent to do this.’

In order to combine human and financial resources, the Soil Carbon IRC is collaborating closely with the international “4 per 1000″ Initiative. ‘We share our Scientific Committee’, says Claudia Schepp, who represented the initiative at the Carbon Farming Summit. ‘All the players have to be around the table to create a common vision.’

Impact4Soil and the MRV cookbook

One of the highlights of the Summit was the presentation of the Impact4Soil platform and the newly cookbook on Monitoring, Reporting, Verification (MRV) systems.

Mathieu Noguès, ORCaSa project manager at INRAE, presented two modules developed in the Impact4Soil platform for carbon farming practices: ‘Scientific evidence is a module that makes it easy to visualise the soil carbon key drivers depending on the type of land (cropland, forestland, grassland, wetland, etc.) and depending on management practices, land use change, climate change. Practices gathers more than 100 practices from around the world, validated by trusted sources (FAO and WOCAT), and helps you understand how to implement them.’

Afterwards, Ahmad Al Bitar, CESBIO senior expert and ORCaSa partner, introduced the cookbook on assessment in different MRV contexts and the proposal for a harmonised approach prepared in the framework of ORCaSa, which will be published soon. ‘Today there is a jungle of MRV systems and we need to harmonise them.’

Available online soon, the Soil Carbon IRC cookbook aims to greatly facilitate the day-to-day work of many experts in the environmental sector by gathering all the tools, parameters, data, and methodologies, etc., that enable MRV methods for soil carbon stock changes for croplands.

As the transition to a low-carbon agriculture requires to involve farmers, the cookbook is a key resource to provide ready-to-use solutions which will save them time and show farmers that they are not alone in dealing with these environnemental changes.

It took over two years of work to produce the cookbook, including the organisation of workshops with stakeholders to understand their needs and a deep analysis of all the MRV application contexts.

A policy brief to guide policy-makers

In Dublin, the Soil Carbon IRC team presented for the first time a policy brief which provides five key recommandations for implementing a harmonised framework for soil carbon certification and a cost-efficient Monitoring, Reporting, Verification (MRV) system :

🌱 Develop modular, consistent and cost-effective MRV systems compliant with international standards.

🌱 A need for collaborative effort between public research and the private sector to build a scalable and practical MRV system.