Transforming Agriculture: Inaugural EU Carbon Farming Summit Breaks Ground for Climate-Resilient Practices

As global environmental challenges intensify and the calls for sustainable agricultural solutions grow louder, the first EU Carbon Farming Summit prepares to welcome experts, innovators, and thought leaders from across Europe to discuss innovation and opportunities for carbon farming. Scheduled to take place in Valencia, Spain, from 5 to 7 March 2024, the summit promises to be a pivotal moment in the pursuit of sustainable agriculture and climate resilience.

Hosted by Project CREDIBLEEIT Climate-KIC and SAE Innova, the EU Carbon Farming Summit will unite diverse stakeholders — from farmers, to policymakers, environmentalists, and technology experts — to explore innovative techniques that can boost the adoption of carbon farming practices.

The event is a first step in building an EU-wide community of practice for all those motivated by sustainable agricultural soil management. It will showcase everything from regenerative farming approaches to cutting-edge monitoring technologies and will illustrate opportunities to approach agriculture differently.

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The Trillion-Dollar Promise Of A Landscape Restoration Industry

We all count on ecosystems — and the natural resources we extract from them — to provide humanity with what it needs to survive and thrive. From fertile soils to forests and raw materials underground, nature appears to be an endless fountain furnishing all that we eat, drink, wear, live in, buy and rely on for fuel.

Yet climate change, declining biodiversity, ecosystem destruction, land degradation and pollution threaten our global life support system, putting whole societies at risk. After 20 years of working in international nature conservation, I have concluded that long-term investment in holistic landscape management and restoration is the key to future-proofing our planet while creating sustainable livelihoods for communities.

“Holistic” is the key word here. There is no point in restoring one tributary of a polluted river without tackling the whole basin — the problem will only resurface, and the investment will be rendered futile. From a risk perspective, it’s essential to consider the entire living system rather than pulling it apart.

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Becoming a Holistic Management Educator

Retraining My Brain

In March 2021, a group keen to find out more about Holistic Management came together at the Muresk Institute near Northam, Western Australia to begin their four-month course. Closed borders and no local educators meant the expansion of Holistic Management education in WA had come to a screeching halt two years earlier. Once Brian Wehlburg from Inside Outside Management was ‘allowed’ back into the state we enthusiastically engaged in what promised to be a challenging few months bending our minds around concepts like creating a Holistic Context to guide our decision making, which is applicable to anyone who makes decisions!

I soon realised that understanding the meaning of this ‘foreign’ language would unlock the fundamentals for everything else to make sense to me.  It was clear that managing holistically where we consider the environment, our social connections as well as our finances is complex and not something that adult humans are naturally good at doing or are raised to consider.

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On Your Farm – Regenerating Lives and Land

The Apricot Centre in Devon is a farm which combines wellbeing and therapy with regenerative farming practices. Farmer Marina Brown O’Connell and her psychotherapist husband Mark O’Connell brought their livelihoods together to create a farm that not only helps regenerate the land, but regenerates lives too. Having adopted their children and brought them up on their farm, the pair saw first-hand how beneficial being in nature can be, and how the simple act of digging your hands into the soil can help you feel connected.

They’ve recently opened the farm up to asylum seekers, offering a space to farm the land, pick vegetables and cook together, creating a community and helping overcome trauma. They’ve also started training the next generation of regenerative farmers, as a means to pass on the land and skills they’ve accumulated over the years.

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Reflections From Debates on Regenerative, Organic, Agroecology

Regenerative. Organic. Agroecology. Like any ecosystem—there is both mutality, collaboration and competition. Sorting out where there is mutuality, shared principles and purpose, and where there are conflicts and competition, was the task of several innovative debates and “fishbowl” discussions at the world’s largest organic food expo, BIOFACH. Some 40.000 companies, farmers, organizational leaders, researchers, and policy makers were gathered there.

I want to share some points from my input, speaking as board member at  IFOAM – Organics International, and some gold from debates:

Stand together

First, my “sense of the room (s)” was that we can all draw inspiration from each other. And above all, organic, agroecological and serious regenerative actors and movements must stand together. For together we are THE alternative and primary challenger to current degenerative food systems.

As a stand-alone term “Regenerative” begs the question: “which regenerative definition are we talking about? Syngentas? Bayers? Nestles? Or that of credible actors like Climate Farmers  or Regeneration International  ?” We must ask this question wherever “regenerative agriculture” is proposed as the solution. Just as we have with “Sustainable.” Andre Leu, International Director at Regeneration International has found one solution: “When uncertain if practices are regenerative or degenerative, we use the descriptions of organic principles of health, ecology, fairness and care.”

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Understanding Why Regenerative Agriculture is the Fastest-Growing Green Theme

Products with Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) are experiencing significant growth in today’s marketplace while sales linked to other sustainability certifications are decelerating.

According to the SPINS 2024 trends report, sustainability has not yet reached a tipping point for consumers. Shoppers still view sustainability as an optional “initiative” and not as an imperative movement.

Skepticism is also running rampant as consumers and regulators push back against the rising tide of companies utilizing unsubstantiated green claims, or “greenwashing,” to drive sales.

These factors, along with ongoing economic pressure, have triggered sales deceleration across many sustainability certified products in today’s marketplace.

Among labeling initiatives that continue to gain traction, however, Regenerative Organic Certification is the top performer.

But what’s behind this certification — and what makes it stand out?

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The Costs Of The AfDB’s Feed Africa Initiative To Farmers: A Deep Look At The 40 National Compacts

The African Development Bank’s Dakar II initiative, titled “Feed Africa: Food Sovereignty and Resilience,” is the latest and most ambitious addition to the Bank’s long-standing “Feed Africa” program. This initiative aims to transform African agriculture and make Africa a breadbasket for the entire world. Implemented as part of the national agricultural development plans of 40 African countries, the initiative has sparked significant debate about its approach and its potential effects. The initiative aims to industrialize African food systems with a proposed budget of $61 billion, primarily from the private sector and development institutions. However, this strategy has been criticized because it risks marginalizing smallholder farmers, harming biodiversity and fostering dependence on multinationals for the purchase of seeds and agrochemicals.

To better understand the Dakar II initiative, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) analyzed each of the 40 “national pacts”, that is to say the global agricultural development plans drawn up by consultants for the program. We examined critical factors, including finance, land allocation, seeds, use of agrochemicals, technology and people, to assess their collective implications for Africa’s smallholder farmers. In this report, we present the main findings and the concerns they raise.

Critics of the initiative, including the Irish president, have expressed concerns about its unique approach and its emphasis on large-scale monoculture, formal seed systems and high-tech solutions such as climate-smart agriculture, digital and precision agriculture, and chemical inputs. These methods are considered beyond the reach of small farmers due to their cost, environmental risks and the threat they pose to their autonomy and traditional practices.

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Global Alliance for Organic Districts (GAOD)

The vision of the Global Alliance for Organic Districts (GAOD) is to co- create a global network able to support the local development of Organic Districts in different territorial contexts and scaling up examples of practical solutions. Our work is based on the principles of Health, Ecology, Fairness and Care.

There are more than 60 Organic Districts in Europe and concrete plans for establishments in Argentina, Taiwan and the Pacific’s.

A major task for us in the coming year is the support of the newly established Organic District in Norway and as an integrated part of Bodø and the county of Nordland as the European Capital of Culture 2024. It is North of the Artic Circle – at 67 degrees north – the land of the midnight sun and northern light. The Sami indigenous culture is central in the region together with small scale agriculture, gathering and harvesting in a close interaction with Artic nature.

Also, this Organic District is the home of Professor Ove D. Jacobsen with his ground breaking work of Ecological Economics. Flowing from this the core of the Nordland Organic District is within the theme of “Local food for local markets”.

Here are some examples on other highlights for our network in 2024:

  • Session 15 February during BioFach in Nuremberg on the topic” Explore the power of Organic Districts and the women shaping their success”
  • 20 years anniversary of the first Organic District “Cilento” in Italy
  • World Conference on Organic Districts 26 July – 4 August in Idanha A Nova, Portugal
  • Conference 14 – 16 August on Nature – Culture- Health in Lofoten, Norway
  • “Peoples Food Summit” 16 October by Regeneration International
  • 21 years anniversary of the research organization “Organic Food Quality and Health” and an international conference 11- 13 November at University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 2nd International School Meal Conference 28 – 30 November in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
  • Organic World Congress 2 – 6 December in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Monarch Butterflies Wintering in Mexico Drop to Second-Lowest Level Ever Recorded

The estimated number of monarch butterflies migrating to Mexico for winter has reached its second-lowest level ever for the 2023 to 2024 overwintering season. The estimate, based on the size of the butterflies’ hibernating forest area, has dropped by about 59% from the previous year, according to officials.

Experts are pointing to extensive heat and drought as well as climate change for the major decline.

Recent years have seen some hope for the migrating monarch butterflies, with a 35% increase in the number of butterflies observed overwintering in Mexico during the 2021 to 2022 season compared to the previous year.

But monarch butterflies face three primary threats, including habitat loss for their breeding and overwintering; the use of pesticides, which can be toxic to the butterflies or can kill their food source, milkweed; and climate change, which can shift their migratory patterns. By the 2022 to 2023 overwintering season, World Wildlife Fund reported a 22% drop in the amount of overwintering monarch butterflies in Mexico.

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The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle

One evening in November, 2021, a group of men assembled at sundown on the terrace of the Ruckomechi Camp, a safari resort on the Zambezi River. Since arriving by private plane, they had gone out lion-spotting, boated down the river, and landed a giant tiger fish; now they were clinking gin-and-tonics. Hippos wallowed in the water below.

The party was led by Renat Heuberger, a forty-four-year-old Swiss entrepreneur with narrow eyes and a cropped copper beard. Heuberger was the chief executive of South Pole, the world’s largest carbon-offsetting firm, and he had come to Zimbabwe to fight off an urgent threat to his company.

A decade earlier, South Pole had signed a deal to sell carbon offsets from an effort to protect a vast swath of forest on the banks of Lake Kariba, upriver from the camp.

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