Valuing the Societal Benefits of Carbon Farming

Beskrivning

In session: Climate Change Economics
Carbon farming whereby farmers choose practices that increase carbon stocks in arable soils seems too costly for them to implement. Yet it could benefit them through higher levels of intermediate ecosystem services that boost soil productivity and provide natural insurance against climate change. Further, it
could provide benefits to society beyond carbon sequestration; by achieving a better balance between future food-production needs and environmental protection. However, we lack evidence of the broader economic value of carbon farming. We aim to present a novel methodology for valuing carbon friendly
farming and provide preliminary results for a study region in southern Sweden.

We provide evidence that carbon farming could contribute substantially to societal welfare through its generation of multiple ecosystem services. Further, we show that failing to take measures to conserve carbon in soils will erode arable productivity and farmers’ future income potential while simultaneously
increasing environmental risks (due to increasing privately optimal inputs of environmentally harmful inputs). Consequently, it would be astute to prevent further losses of carbon from arable soils, but preferably increase carbon stocks from society’s perspective. We hope our results will help decision makers appreciate the value of promoting carbon farming—through an appropriate policy instrument—as a means of developing climate friendly and sustainable agriculture.

Period	2022 maj 17
Evenemangstitel	Swedish Climate Symposium 2022
Typ av evenemang	Konferens
Plats	Norrköping, SverigeVisa på karta