ClieNFarms’ 2nd Public Policy Workshop: How can the EU agricultural sector contribute to climate neutrality?

On October 28th, IFOAM Organics Europe hosted the second public policy workshop of the project ClieNFarms, entitled “How can the EU agricultural sector contribute to climate neutrality?” in the context of the recent farmers’ protests, the EU elections and the Strategic Dialogue report, which mentioned “Advancing towards sustainable agri-food systems” as one of the five pillars. The workshop brought together experts from around the world, farmers, policy makers, umbrella organisations, and an audience of 40 people to contextualise the importance of having a common climate goal that EU agriculture contributes to, with measures taken at the farm level and beyond.
The workshop began with a welcoming word by the host Alba Saez, R&I coordinator consultant at IFOAM Organics Europe. This was followed by two keynote speeches from Jacques-Eric Bergez, senior researcher at INRAE & ClieNFarms coordinator, who introduced the workshop and the ClieNFarms project, and Julia Bognar, Head of Programme for the Land Use & Climate team at the IEEP, who talked about climate mitigation efforts in EU agriculture towards 2030 and the current pathway that we’re on right now.

Climate Neutrality is still on the political agenda

Jacques-Eric quoted European Commission’s president Ursula Von der Leyen in the general Strategic Dialogue on the future of EU agriculture to stress that the recommendations under the aforementioned pilar dive into the support and promotion of sustainable farming practices. He was also the first one to say that agricultural emissions have been stagnant since 2005 and more efforts are needed to drive them down, an admonition that was echoed by all the speakers throughout the workshop. The ClieNFarms project aims at tackling this issue by demonstrating that innovative systemic solutions have the potential to generate positive impacts by 2030 and preparing roadmaps to climate neutrality to be adopted by farms and farming systems. This is done through the development of an Innovative System Solution Space (I3S) Network based on a demonstration and upscaling approach.

2030 emission trends and targets

Julia pointed out the wide variability of emission trends between Member States (MS), with emissions decreasing in 13 MS, but increasing in 14. Some countries such as Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, or Austria need to put special attention to reducing their agricultural emissions because agriculture makes up a large share of their total emissions. Julia also pointed out that the predicted trajectory with additional measures of the Effort Sharing sectors’ emissions and the LULUCF, both of which cover some agricultural emissions, will fall short of meeting the 2030 target. Very few MS have a concrete pathway to re to reach the ESR or the LULUCF targets. She expressed concern for countries such as Czechia, Estonia, Finland, and France where the declining trend of net removals until 2025 may impact the achievement of the 2030 targets but brought up some positive progress in other MS such as Lithuania, Germany, the Netherlands or Spain with measures to rewet/restore peatlands or reduce livestock emission.

More efforts are needed

Julia emphasised the need for a clear roadmap for emission reductions at a sectoral level, so not just farmers, but all actors across the value chain, based on the adoption of agroecological practices. This needs to be accompanied by consumer behavior changes, food waste reduction measures along the value chain, large-scale financing for farmers, and a strategy to internalize the true cost of food.

EU agriculture’s contribution to climate neutrality – ClieNFarm’s first policy brief

After Julia’s talk, the floor was then given back to Alba Saez, who presented the first policy brief developed by ClieNFarms, which had the same topic as the workshop. Alba presented the differences between the terms carbon neutrality, GHG neutrality, and Climate neutrality, emphasising that the latter should include the former two as well as consider the radiative effects of terrestrial ecosystems and planetary boundaries, thereby taking a holistic approach. She claimed that taking a reductive approach that focuses only on one or few of these elements risks worsening the climate crisis by means of trade-offs and carbon leakage and that on-farm solutions should be based on the presented holistic approach. Alba presented key recommendations identified by ClieNFarms, such as that MS need to improve their monitoring, reporting, and verification systems, which Julia also mentioned, the importance of tackling biodiversity and climate together to improve system resilience, or the need for the Carbon Removal Certification Framework to recognise the efforts of first movers, such as organic farmers.

The last part of the workshop was a policy debate with Peter Fröhlich, CEO and founder of AgriCircle, deputy leader of ClieNFarms’ Work Package 2; Valeria Forlin, Unit Land Economy and Carbon Removals, DG Clima; Mark Howden, International Advisory Board of ClieNFarms, Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University; Nicola Di Virgilio, Unit Env Sustainability, DG Agri; and Alba Saez, R&I Coordinator Consultant at IFOAM Organics Europe. They discussed the term holistic approach and the challenges associated with making policies that have multiple purposes. For example, Valeria mentioned that the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) has a mandatory requirement for carbon farming practises to benefit biodiversity but a biodiversity indicator is lacking. Alba added the unfair advantage that rewarding single measures has on farmers that deliver fewer environmental benefits than those who use a whole-farm approach with higher environmental performance. Mark explained that research can contribute to seeing agrifood systems in a more holistic way by collaborating with farmers in projects like ClieNFarms, which are co-designed to address farmers’ actual questions. He emphasized the importance of farmers understanding trade-offs and co-benefits from a systems perspective to help them make informed decisions.
If you are interested in the topics of this policy workshop and you would like to find out more about it, check out the full recording