Progetto Life+ AGRICARE Innovative Green Farming


It is widely recognized that the primary sector has significant climate change mitigation potential: roughly, 1/3 of the total emissions of carbon into the atmosphere since 1850 has resulted from land use. In EU, even if agriculture plays only a small part in the economies of European Union (EU) member countries, accounting for about 2% of GDP and 5% of EU employment, in terms of its impact on the environment and natural resources, agriculture role is more significant accounting for 45% of EU total land use and it is responsible for 9.6% of the Total GHGs emissions by sector in EU-27 in 2008 (Source: EEA 2011).

Therefore, agriculture can play a key role as part of a comprehensive EU strategy to slow the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. In this frame, improving the quality of soil operations through advance low-carbon farming techniques represents a win-win approach to the problem: increasing carbon stock at soil level can be considered a very effective approach to target GHG reduction goals.

In this sense, calibrations and tests have to be implemented. This because the soil is a very complex matrix where chemical, physical and biological phenomena interact and determine the evolution of the different soil layers. Moreover, all the soil phenomena are influenced by annual temperature as well precipitation and those factors can change year by year strongly influencing the rate of the different soil processes. Therefore, also the patters of climate change and the medium-long term projections of its effects over the agriculture and soils have to be considered.

The introduction of new precision farming technologies to prevent GHG emission from the soil management as well as sustainable practices such as the reduction of tillage and the application of precision farming techniques have the potential to prevent CO2 emission.

Thanks to LIFE-AGRICARE project, the tests both will act on carbon stock in a long term perspective but also on carbon emissions, with direct benefits in terms of energy saving and GHG emission reduction.