Tuesday, September 24, Kaspars Gerhards, the Minister for Agriculture, will participate in an informal meeting of the European Union Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries in Helsinki, hosted by the current Presidency in the European Council – Finland. At the meeting, the Ministers from Member States will discuss the role of agriculture in the EU climate policy, namely, how to facilitate a sustainable agriculture by means of carbon sequestration in soil.
Finland emphasizes that it is important to increase carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. Therefore, EU has already now started working on the necessary solutions, improving carbon sequestration in soils in all the Member States.
Latvia is of the opinion that emphasis is on the fact that various climate measures is a part and parcel of strategic plans of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) however, the totality of the environmental and climate requirements within CAP must be commensurate and sufficiently balanced against the funding allocated to Member States.
Kaspars Gerhards: “it is important for Latvia that the environmental and climate conditions could be effectively implemented in reality and not only indicated in the content of European Union documents. European Union must motivate farmers to incorporate the climate measures into their activities by offering effective solutions in cost terms – if the EU sets up the attainable targets, an adequate and sufficient funding must be provided to achieve these targets. At the same time, of no lesser importance is providing the EU support to advisory and training for farmers, regarding carbon sequestration in agricultural soils by setting up attainable targets, adjusting instruments and mechanisms as well as informing farmers thereof, we are able to achieve the best possible results.”
Latvian researchers are working on the development of marginal cost curve of agricultural GHG emission reduction measures to identify cost-effective GHG emission reduction methods. Besides, currently, Latvia is planning the development of soil carbon monitoring system for agricultural land. Upon implementation of this system, 200 carbon monitoring sampling plots will be established in agricultural land.