Publications

The European Commission is due to deliver a Vision for Agriculture and Food, within the first 100 days of its new mandate. Feeding into this work, the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture (SDFA) published its report “A shared prospect for farming and food in Europe" in September. The spending under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and its alignment with the climate goals agreed at the EU level will be central to the next steps.  

Putting Agricultural Risk Management on the Agenda  In recent years agriculture has been hit by numerous crisis in France: adverse climatic events (primarily droughts, floods, and frost) and health crisis (notably avian flu), directly impacting agricultural production. Broader crisis, such as COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have also indirectly but significantly affected the agricultural sector. Climate change, the ongoing Ukraine conflict, and overall geopolitical tensions suggest that these crisis and their impacts will become a lasting pattern in the future. These are crucial factors to consider when defining and strengthening food sovereignty. 

La transition écologique du système alimentaire pose de nombreuses et épineuses questions de financement : combien ça coûte ? qui doit payer ? les financements existants y contribuent-ils ? C’est à cette dernière question que ce rapport apporte des éléments de réponse. Dans ce rapport, nous réalisons un recensement aussi exhaustif que possible des soutiens publics au système alimentaire français en 2018, 2021 et 2024. Nous analysons la contribution théorique de ces financements à la définition de la transition écologique des pouvoirs publics.

A few days after the conclusion of negotiations on the European Union's carbon removals certification Framework (CRCF), I4CE helped organise the European Carbon Farming Summit in Valencia, as part of the CREDIBLE project. The high level of stakeholder participation at the summit testifies to the expectations that this new tool will contribute to a better economic valuation of carbon farming practices. The summit raised high hopes for improving and harmonising carbon measurement to certify projects, in particular through remote sensing, in a sector where there is a great deal of uncertainty. While it is vital to improve measurement and monitoring, uncertainty must not be allowed to justify inaction, and the key is to find the right balance between cost and accuracy.

Livestock population in France has been falling for several decades (-20% for dairy cattle and -33% for sows since 2000), without necessarily reducing the quantities produced. But productivity gains will not be able to maintain production levels forever. For the decline in livestock farming to have an impact on the climate, it must be accompanied by a drop in meat consumption, but is this really happening?

Accompanying the decline in livestock numbers. All transition scenarios rely on a decline in livestock numbers to meet climate targets. Yet in France, most livestock populations are already declining. The challenge is not only to continue this trend, but also to support it, to ensure a fair and acceptable transition for livestock farmers and other players in the livestock industry. This is particularly true for the dairy sector.

How can we differentiate between projects that really enable carbon to be stored and those that only claim to do so? This is a complicated question when dealing with projects in agriculture and forestry, where quantifying carbon storage is complex, and where other environmental challenges, like the preservation of biodiversity, must also be taken into account. A complicated question, therefore, but one that needs an answer! Private actors and public authorities want to ensure that the agricultural and forestry projects financed in the name of the climate have a real environmental benefit.

Yesterday, 30 november 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a first EU-wide voluntary framework to reliably certify high-quality carbon removals. This proposal provides a framework, broad guiding principles, and the details will be specified in 2023 supported by an expert group on Carbon Removals. “The devil may be in the detail”, but the framing is no less important. Claudine Foucherot of [i4ce] has analysed it and identified four points on which we must be vigilant. Overall, it can be said that the Commission is submitting an ambitious proposal, which nevertheless presents a risk: not being sufficient incentives to ensure a massive deployment of certified projects.    

The European Commission will propose a `carbon certification’ by the end of the year as a first step towards remunerating farmers and foresters who contribute to carbon farming. This certification project raises debates and concerns. For Adeline FAVREL of I4CE, the EU can respond and develop an ambitious certification by relying on the experience of the Member States in this field.

In order to reach the objectives of the recently approved EU Climate Law, the agricultural sector has to simultaneously reduce significantly its level of emission, increase the amount of carbon it sequesters, and augment the production of biomass in substitution of fossil fuel – which are to be phased out in the short term. In […]

On December 15, 2021, as part of its communication on carbon sinks, the European Commission made public its proposals to strengthen carbon storage in agricultural soils. Its objective: to remunerate farmers to encourage them to store more carbon. To achieve this, it is first necessary to build a European carbon certification framework to guarantee the […]

In the context of the development of the Low Carbon Label, one of the recurring questions from potential financiers is: "What am I allowed to say and do when financing certified low carbon projects? With this publication, I4CE provides operational and pragmatic answers.

Eating less animal products and wasting less reduces the budget, but increasing consumption of organic products increases it. In total, does adopting a sustainable diet increase or decrease consumer spending?

To learn more about the methodology used by I4CE to assess the contribution of financing flows to the emergence of a sustainable food system, this technical paper introduces it and identifies its limitations and key methodological challenges for the future.

One of the main elements of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the 2021-2027 exercise is the shift of part of the funding towards an obligation to achieve environmental results. Is that an expensive development? Environmentally effective? In order to answer these questions, this I4CE study analyses numerous mechanisms, more or less oriented towards performance obligation.

In spite of its "greening" during the previous programming period, the Common Agricultural Policy has had very little impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector, even though they must be halved by 2050. And the CAP's two flagship instruments on environmental issues - green payments under the first pillar, and agri-environmental and climate measures (AECM) under the second - have come in for strong criticism.

On 6 July, the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Nicolas Hulot, organized a conference to mark the first anniversary of the Climate Plan. After a morning spent reviewing the progress made by France, the afternoon was dedicated to four workshops. These workshops were chaired by two Secretaries of State from the Ministry, the ADEME President, and Benoit Leguet the Managing Director of I4CE.