Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Their Management: Challenges and Solutions

The agricultural sector faces a critical question: How can we feed the growing global population while minimizing the environmental impacts of production to halt climate change? Biocode’s expert, Eveliina Heikkala, highlighted the complexity of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in a recent webinar and explored various solutions to reduce them.

Food is, and will remain, an essential part of sustaining humanity. Unfortunately, agriculture plays a significant role in accelerating climate change, with a substantial portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions originating from this sector. From clearing land to crop cultivation, livestock production, and ultimately consumption, every stage in the food chain leaves a carbon footprint.

Challenges and Opportunities

While acknowledging the significant emissions from agriculture, the sector also holds considerable potential for emission reductions. However, reducing emissions requires expertise and resources. In response to these challenges, various digital solutions can be employed to facilitate emission calculations, enabling agricultural operators to identify their emission sources and take steps to reduce them.

Sources of Agricultural Emissions

The webinar recording delves into the major sources of emissions within the food chain. These include:

• Land use changes
• Fertilizer application
• Livestock digestion emissions
• Emissions from energy consumption

Emissions also arise from transportation, retail, and usage phases, including refrigeration and energy-intensive processing and cooking methods.

A closer examination of the various sources of agricultural emissions covers:

• Organic carbon emissions from soil
• Nitrous oxide and methane emissions
• Inputs related to production, such as fuel consumption and crop handling

Different soil types, such as peat and mineral soils, also influence the magnitude of emissions.

From Emission Calculations to Action: Sustainable Agricultural Practices

Emission calculations in agriculture are an excellent way to identify areas for emission reductions in primary production. Sustainable agricultural practices, such as:

• Cultivation on mineral soils
• Utilizing side streams and minimizing waste
• Using organic fertilizers
• Leveraging renewable energy sources

are effective methods for reducing emissions. The BSAG’s regenerative farming e-learning platform also provides a solid foundation for more detailed sustainable agricultural practices. Individual calculation results can reveal additional ways to reduce emissions without compromising productivity or yield levels.

Emission calculation, especially in agriculture, can be challenging and require considerable expertise. With digital calculation tools, farmers or producers can perform the calculations themselves without the need for a climate expert. When calculation guidelines and models are integrated into the tool, the user’s only responsibility is to input their production data, resulting in a comprehensive emission analysis and the ability to identify areas for emission reductions.

Explore how carbon farming methods helped reduce emissions in barley cultivation.

Summary

Something needs to be done about agricultural emissions, and soon. Although the challenges are significant, the opportunities for innovation and collaboration are equally vast. With digital calculation tools, data-driven decisions, and sustainable agricultural practices, significant emission reductions can be achieved in agriculture in the future.

We encourage collaboration among food chain stakeholders to identify and implement emission reductions. Farmers, producers, logistics operators, equipment manufacturers, processors, waste managers, retailers, and we, as consumers, can all contribute to the solution.