AgriDENZ Online Workshop on “Global Perspectives on Soil Carbon Sequestration: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities”

The AgriDENZ project hosted an online workshop on Carbon Sequestration Potential in Agricultural Soils on 22nd September 2025 with speakers from New Zealand, Germany, Ghana and Uruguay.

Based on national inventories and case studies, the presenters demonstrated how carbon loss mitigation and potential carbon sequestration can be achieved in agricultural soils. They discussed the magnitude of these contributions to climate change mitigation, examining effects from the farm scale up to the continental level.

Sam McNally and Paul Mudge from the Bioeconomy Science Institute – Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, New Zealand, presented the potential of New Zealand’s agricultural soils to reduce carbon losses and enhance soil carbon stocks at the national scale. Their talk was followed by Felix Seidel from the Thünen Institute, Germany, who highlighted that currently soil carbon stocks in Germany tend to decrease. In addition, he showed that, if proven agricultural management practices were widely implemented across Europe, they could offset 20–30% of annual agricultural GHG emissions at best. Vincent Logah from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, demonstrated with different case studies how agricultural and non-agricultural lands in Ghana could contribute to climate change mitigation through buildup of soil carbon stressing the urgent need for long-term field experiments and a national soil monitoring in this underrepresented region of the world. Finally, Ignacio Sommer from the DAUA project in Uruguay showed how data from long-term field experiments can contribute to finding suitable management options for sequestering carbon, maintaining soil health and achieving a sustainable production focusing on grasslands. Adding to this, he presented an innovative policy tool which translates scientific evidence into practice by guiding farmers to conserve soil and carbon while producing.

The speakers agreed that before soils can become carbon sinks to sequester carbon, current carbon losses need to be stopped. For this assessment, national soil inventories and long-term field experiments are crucial. Higher adoption rates of agricultural practices that enhance soil carbon can only be achieved if they are supported by appropriate economic incentives or enabling policy frameworks.

Watch the recording of the online workshop here: https://youtu.be/oBpfY4dKLAE