ICOS Science Conference 2022: Day 1, Session 3

1. Carbon Action – towards regenerative
agriculture in Finland
Elisa Vainio, project manager, Baltic Sea Action Group
ICOS SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2022

2. Baltic Sea Action Group (2008),
is an independent non-profit foundation
based in Finland.
BSAG works to restore the good
ecological balance of the Baltic Sea
in the changing climate.
We are a matchmaker and a catalyst for change.
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3. HEALTHY SOILS OFFER MULTIPLE BENEFITS
• minimize nutrient runoff to
the water bodies
• store more carbon, reducing
carbon emissions and
mitigating climate change
• support higher biodiversity
4
BSAG / Eliisa Malin
ICOS SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2022

4. HEALTHY SOIL STORES MORE CARBON
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FOTOSYNTHESIS
(= ACTIVE CARBON UPTAKE)
ICOS SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2022

5. SOIL HEALTH IS ALSO A GOAL IN EU POLICY
EU soil strategy for 2030
→ healthy soils by 2050
→ New Soil Health Law
by 2023
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6. COSTS AND POTENTIAL OF CO2 REMOVAL
METHODS 2050
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Soil
quality
Food security
Trace
GHGs
Forests
Soil
Enhanced
weathering
Direct air capture
Biochar
Bioenergy
carbon capture
and storage
Minx et al. 2018, Environmental Research Letters.
ICOS SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2022

7. REGENERATIVE FARMING
METHODS
• Water management
• Minimize tilling
• Organic soil amendments and
biochar
• Minimize chemical pesticides
• Balanced fertilizing
• Year-round green cover
• Catch crops and cover crops
• Diverse crop rotation
• Deep-rooted plants in crop rotation
• Carbon sequestrating grazing
• Agroforestry
• FIRST: Fix the foundations! Remove compactions from the fields.
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8. CARBON ACTION PLATFORM
COMPANIES
Communication & Media
DECISION
MAKERS
SCIENTISTS
FARMERS
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9. CARBON ACTION FARMS
10
Ca. 100 farms =
research sites
20 Advanced
Carbon Action
sites
5 intensive
research sites with
EC – incl. 2 SMEAR
stations
ICOS SCIENCE CONFERENCE 2022

10. CARBON ACTION VERIFICATION SYSTEM
FOR SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION
Satellite
measurements
(Sentinel-2,
LAI, NDVI)
Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer
(PEcAn)
World 1st forecast on
carbon sequestration
Data from farms Data from test sites
Validation Society
www.fieldobservatory.org
Ecosystem models
(BASGRA, STICS, Land-DNDC)
Soil model (Yasso)
Nevalainen et al. 2022, Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst.
Fer et al. 2020, Global Change Biology
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11. CO2 FLUX & CARBON BALANCE IN QVIDJA 2018–2021
Heimsch et al. 2021, Biogeosciences
Carbonaction.org
> Science
> Peer-reviewed
publications
Harvest Harvest
hot weather
Harvest Harvest Harvest Harvest Harvest
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12. FREE ONLINE
COURSE ON
REGENERATIVE
CARBON FARMING
Now in
Finnish and
Swedish
So far 1 700
registered
participants
Aim: short
version also in
English
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13. COMPANIES
can affect both the work of farmers and consumer choices.
Examples of actions:
• training their contract farmers for regenerative farming – 600 farmers trained
• integrate the principles of regenerative farming into the sourcing criteria
• regeneratively produced products
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14. Note the Carbon Action related
poster presentations!
Wednesday evening 18:00 – 19:30,
poster session 10
65. Fer, Istem: Operational near-term iterative forecasting of
greenhouse gas emissions from Finnish agricultural fields
78. Kajasilta, Henri: Operationalizing the Landscape-DNDC
model through the Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer model-data
integration cyberinfrastructure at SMEAR-Agri sites
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15. Project funders

16. THANK YOU
Follow us:
@BSAG_
#CarbonAction
www.carbonaction.org