Agricultural soils can play an important role not only for food security but also for climate change adaptation and mitigation. The Initiative launched by France (December 2015) at COP 21 is intended to engage the public and private sectors under this framework.
The Third “4 per 1000 Initiative Day” was held in Madrid, on the occasion of the organization of the COP25. The Ministers of Agriculture of Spain (Mr. Luis Planas), France (Mr. Didier Guillaume) attended the meeting and highlighted the opportunities and challenges that would be faced in the near future. Mr. Wolfgang Zornbach, head of the unit of plant protection of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture chaired the meeting.
Sustainable land management practices such as cover crops, crop rotations, agroforestry, or permanent rangelands have proven ability to improve organic carbon sequestration in soils. Soils were presented as being an important part of the solution to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The following priority questions were identified:
- What can be done to increase Soil Organic Carbon stocks and what will it cost?
- How can national plans to increase SOC be developed?
- How to monitor SOC change and report progress?
- How to build capacity in relation to SOC management?
- How to lower barriers through markets and policies?
- How to incentivise farmers, foresters and other land managers?
- How to engage with consumers, industries, and other stakeholders?
More information is available at:
https://www.4p1000.org/events-4-1000-initiative