Network meeting Carbon Farming
On Tuesday, January 23rd, a network meeting was organized by the Public private partnership (PPP) Carbon Farming to exchange experiences regarding current carbon farming pilots in practice. Various parties were invited; from provinces to consultancy firms and chain parties. Everyone had the opportunity to elaborate on their own initiatives. Project leader of PPP Carbon Farming, Jennie van der Kolk, kicked off the afternoon with a brief presentation on carbon farming and the current state of affairs, including how payments in the Netherlands and Europe can vary depending on the market in which carbon farming is valorized.
During lively discussions, topics such as the QU.A.L.ITY criteria used within the EU-framework on carbon farming (quantification, additionality, long-term [storage], and sustainability) were mentioned. These criteria were considered crucial, especially in relation to the monitoring method used: whether it is based on the achieved effort (Action-based) or controlled based on sequestered carbon (Result-based).
A significant point of discussion was the perceived inadequacy of the current (small) scale of carbon farming within Dutch agriculture; at farm level. It was argued that this scale might be too small to accurately capture changes in soil carbon over a certain period. To address this, the suggestion was made to seek partnerships among farmers to help increase measurable carbon sequestration; possibly by taking more samples and looking at a larger scale.
At the end of the day, with ongoing discussions among invitees, it was decided to schedule another meeting in a few months to keep each other informed about further developments in the field of carbon farming.