The Government has announced more support to open up multi-billion-pound opportunities for farmers and landowners in the carbon market. This commitment is set to develop a new harmonised approach for measuring farm emissions.
According to Farming Minister Mark Spencer, the announcement follows on from a call for evidence on the role of robust monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions on farms.
The results from the call for evidence revealed low confidence in the tools on the market that were aimed at helping farmers to assess their emissions.
However, by developing a harmonised methodology and setting out how farmers will be supported to measure their emissions, Mr Spencer insists that confidence can be restored.
He said that the Government will help the agricultural sector to reduce emissions across the supply chain, including from livestock, nutrient management, and farm equipment.
He added that the new measures will not only help farmers to calculate their carbon footprint, but also open up new financial opportunities. These include combining private commercial opportunities with the new farming schemes support.
There is also a huge opportunity for farmers to access private sector funding for delivering positive outcomes for nature, which the Government is accelerating through the Nature Markets Framework.
The framework will support nature markets to grow in a way that makes them fair, effective and accessible to farmers.
Alongside this, the Green Finance Institute will develop an online toolkit to help farmers identify and access private payments for environmental benefits.
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