[Global “Agri-Talk”] For Carbon in Soil to Become Farm Income

[Global “Agri-Talk”: Capturing the Future of Agriculture] Kim Ki-chul, Director of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City European Office
 

In 2020, two local energy cooperatives in the southwestern Netherlands made a proposal to nearby farmers. If they changed their farming methods to store more carbon in the soil, they would be compensated with part of the revenue from wind power generation. The farmers’ organization ZLTO joined this pilot project, in which 15 farms near “Windpark Krammer” participated. Planting cover crops and reducing tillage had, in effect, become farm work eligible for compensation.

The project period was five years, and the price set was 100 euros per ton of carbon dioxide. Seventy percent of the compensation was to be paid each year after confirming whether the promised farming methods had been practiced, while the remaining 30% was to be paid after the project ended and the results were confirmed through soil testing. It was not a system in which farmers had to pay five years’ worth of costs upfront and wait until the final day.
 

How to Count Carbon Accumulated in Soil

It is easy to say that carbon should be stored in soil. What is difficult is calculating the amount in a reliable way. The European Union (EU) adopted three methodologies this past July to apply to the “Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming Certification Framework (CRCF)”. They are standards for verifying how much carbon has increased or how much emissions have been reduced on land where farmland and trees are managed together, on rewetted peatlands, and in newly established forests, among other places.

Changes that would have occurred even if farming had continued as usual cannot be counted as new achievements. The condition before the project must be examined, and the results after changing farming methods must be measured. If a model is used because direct measurement is difficult, its margin of error is also included in the calculation. For farmers, in addition to learning new farming methods, there is now the work of keeping records, undergoing inspections, and verification.
 

More Important Than the Price per Ton Is the Money Left for Farms

The Netherlands’ price of 100 euros per ton is not a price that applies everywhere in Europe. For various types of agricultural-and forestry projects registered under France’s “Low-Carbon Label,” prices ranged from 8 to 125 euros per ton, with an average of about 35 euros. It is not a value uniformly set by the government, but a price determined by project operators and funders based on project costs, local conditions, and environmental effects.

There are also large differences in the amount stored. In a demonstration project in the southern Netherlands, annual carbon dioxide storage of 1 to 4 tons per hectare was measured depending on soil and farming methods. If this is applied directly to 10 hectares of farmland, it amounts to 350 to 1,400 euros per year at 35 euros per ton, and 1,000 to 4,000 euros at 100 euros. This is only a hypothetical calculation using figures borrowed from different projects, not the income a farm would take home. The costs of cover crop seeds and additional work, as well as soil testing and certification, must be deducted from this.

The reason Belgian dairy farmer André Van Bets in the Campine region participated in the demonstration project was not sales income alone. On sandy land, if carbon is lacking, productivity can easily decline amid climate change. He said he wanted to learn how to increase carbon in the soil. If the soil holds water better and reduces drought damage, farms gain benefits beyond compensation payments. Conversely, if work costs rise or yields fall, it is difficult to cover the losses with compensation alone. Who pays the testing costs, and how accounts will be settled when targets are not met due to extreme weather, must also be considered before signing a contract.
 

Farmers Need to Know How Much Is Left When the Books Are Closed

Korea also has a low-carbon agricultural and livestock product certification system and projects that support paddy water management and biochar application. The EU’s CRCF differs in that it certifies newly stored carbon and reduced soil emissions as outcomes compared with existing methods. While making use of the farm education and certification experience accumulated domestically, it is necessary first to determine how much measurement and verification cost on our farmland.

If a single farm undergoes soil testing, manages data, and even finds buyers, the compensation may disappear into costs. It is worth testing a method in which farms with similar conditions participate together, as in major fruit-growing areas or joint management bodies for field crops, and agricultural cooperatives or producer organizations gather data and take charge of verification applications and sales. Public institutions should reduce that burden by preparing regional baselines and measurement methods.

When announcing the results of pilot projects, simply stating how many tons of carbon were stored does not help farmers make decisions. The compensation received and the costs spent on seeds, work, testing, and certification, as well as changes in yield, should be shown together. Only when farmers know how much is left when they close their books, can they know how much income carbon in the soil can become.