On February 6-8, in Strasbourgh, Raivis Kronbergs, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), participated in the informal meeting of the EU Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries where Member States discussed reduction in amounts of glasshouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing of carbon sequestration both in agricultural and forestry sectors.
In Latvia’s opinion, in our conditions, particularly favorable agricultural and forestry methods are afforestation and agri-forestry to reduce amounts of GHG emissions and increase carbon sequestration because forests facilitate increase in carbon stock by both live and dead biomas. Just as these objectives can be achieved by organic agriculture, intercrops and undersowings, which are used as green manure thus, increasing content of organic carbon in soil and enhancing biologic diversity, and other methods.
R. Kronbergs, MoA State Secretary emphasized in the Council: “At the same time we are pointing out that the primary objective of agriculture must be production of agricultural products to daily ensure our inhabitants with a large assortment of safe and qualitative food at competitive prices.”
Latvia just as other States of our region, highlighted that upon introduction of a carbon-binding agriculture, regional and geographical differences of Member States and specificity of farms must be taken into consideration. Due to considerable differences, it is not admissible that uniform conditions and restrictions are applied equally to all the EU Member States, a simple and reliable carbon certification system is necessary. At the Council meeting, Member States agreed on joint work towards solution of this issue.
As it is known, for EU to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, it is very essential to facilitate carbon sequestration in soil. In December 2021, the European Commission published the communication on sustainable carbon cycles to motivate farmers and forest owners to implement sustainable carbon sequestration practices.
The informal meeting of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries in Strasbourgh was held by the French presidency of the Council.