Encouraging Farmers to Capture Carbon Emissions in their Soil
We all have those images still in mind: Tractors taking the streets of European capital cities, blockades of European highways and farmers coming from all over the EU to protest in front of the European Parliament. All in protest of the bloc’s environmental policies, such as the Green Deal, which calls for limits on the use of chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions.
But this is only one side of the coin. Threatened by climate change and the resulting vulnerability of their land, agricultural stakeholders in rural regions also understand that they need to change their ways of doing business. The sector has to reduce its emissions and one way to do so is carbon farming. It is the process of changing practices to increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil, or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. It has huge potential but is still underused in central Europe.
And this is where the Carbon Farming CE project comes into play.
The climate is changing, and agriculture must change accordingly.
Convinced that cooperation is central to achieving real impact, the project partners tested six different carbon farming techniques across central Europe. This collaborative approach prevented the duplication of efforts and made it possible to efficiently identify which methods work best for storing carbon dioxide under different regional conditions.
It may sound simple, but the challenge of holding carbon and nutrients in the soil – to make farmland more climate-resilient while reducing emissions at the same time – is no small feat.
Beyond its scientific focus, the project also aims to overcome “ideological battles” by making rural stakeholders more familiar with carbon farming practices. As part of its awareness-raising activities, the project brought together a group of Polish farmers in Łęczyca, a rural municipality in the Łódź region, to introduce the concept and exchange on the initial results of the field tests.
Before the project concludes in early 2026, the partners will translate their field test experiences and shared learnings into a practical roadmap to help farmers go greener and make their agriculture more climate-resilient. With this roadmap, the project ultimately hopes to accelerate the uptake of carbon farming across central Europe and increase our rural regions’ resilience to climate change.
Project: Carbon Farming CE
Duration: 2023-2026
Budget: 2,25 m €
Partners: AT, CZ, DE, HR, HU, IT, PL, SI, SK
