Carbon Farming Practices and Climate Change Mitigation

Carbon farming encompasses a suite of land management practices designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or enhance the capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide in soils and vegetation. Approaches range from afforestation, reforestation and agroforestry to conservation tillage, cover cropping, biochar application and improved grazing management. By shifting agricultural and forestry systems towards net-zero or net-negative emissions, these interventions offer co-benefits for soil fertility, biodiversity, water quality and rural livelihoods. The global food and land use sector contributes roughly one quarter of anthropogenic emissions, yet has the technical capacity to sequester several gigatonnes of CO₂ annually. Realising this potential requires supportive policy frameworks, robust measurement and verification, market incentives or payments for ecosystem services, and capacity building among landholders. Social acceptance, equitable benefit sharing and integration with food security objectives are essential to ensure durable uptake and avoid unintended land-use trade-offs.

Research from Nature Portfolio

A comprehensive assessment of pathways to net-zero emissions in global food systems evaluates over sixty scenarios of low-emission practices and carbon sequestration measures. The analysis indicates that intensifying food production can transform the sector from emitting 21.4 GtCO₂e y⁻¹ to sequestering circa 2 GtCO₂e y⁻¹, without over-reliance on traditional afforestation offsets. A diversified portfolio is critical: shifting production towards the least emission-intensive 30th percentile yields a 45 % reduction, unlocking up to 5 GtCO₂e y⁻¹ of soil and biomass carbon storage, and realising an additional 6 GtCO₂e y⁻¹ through dietary shifts and emerging technologies. The study emphasises the need for cost-effective mitigation practices during the 2020s, underpinned by strengthened governance, innovative finance and targeted research to scale affordable technologies through to mid-century.

Carbon Farming Practices and Climate Change Mitigation publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in carbon farming practices and climate change mitigation across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Carbon sequestration: the long-term capture and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide in soils, vegetation or geological formations.

Carbon farming: the implementation of agricultural or land-use practices intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or enhance carbon storage in biomass and soils.

Net-zero emissions: the state in which anthropogenic greenhouse gas releases are balanced by equivalent removals through natural or engineered sinks.

Carbon credit: a tradable certificate representing the avoidance, reduction or removal of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Afforestation/Reforestation: the establishment or restoration of forest cover on lands where trees were previously absent or removed, to increase carbon uptake.

References

1. Carbon farming diffusion in Australia. Global Environmental Change (2024).
2. Roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions in global food systems by 2050. Scientific Reports (2022).
3. Soil carbon sequestration as a climate strategy: what do farmers think?. Biogeochemistry (2022).
4. Interested but Uncertain: Carbon Markets and Data Sharing among U.S. Crop Farmers. Land (2023).