On the 19th of March, the AgriDENZ project hosted a second webinar on farm-level GHG accounting. In this webinar, the AgriDENZ topic leads on farm-level GHG accounting, Elin Martinsson (Thünen Institute) and Darran Austin (MPI), presented ongoing work on comparing farm-level GHG accounting approaches. In this work, the AgriDENZ team are developing a framework for comparing and improving the mutual understanding of farm-level GHG accounting methods and apply this framework to the case of Germany (AgriGHG-tool) and New Zealand (Farm Emissions Method).
Key takeaways:
- The work put forward 6 criteria to consider when comparing farm-level GHG accounting approaches to increase mutual understanding of farm-level GHG accounting approaches developed for different national settings.
- Farm-level GHG accounting approaches developed for different agricultural systems can differ widely, such as in the case of the AgriGHG-tool (Germany) and Farm emissions method (New Zealand). This makes comparisons of methods challenging.
- The one emission source which is accounted for at a similar level of detailedness in both methods is enteric fermentation from dairy cows, providing an opportunity to conduct an in-depth comparison of how this emission source is accounted for.
- Comparing how enteric fermentation from dairy cows is estimated in the two methods reveal differences in data definitions and country-specific parameters, even though the equations are similar. Comparing the two methods empirically shows that they yield similar results.
The presentation was followed by a Q&A where the participants raised important questions related to how to deal with differences between pasture based and feed-based animal farming, the importance of considering updates and changes on farm-level GHG accounting methods over time and how to handle differences in national GHG inventories which translates into differences in the methods used to estimate on-farm emissions.
Please find the video recording here.
In AgriDENZ, the webinar series on farm-level GHG accounting will continue and we will soon release the topic and date of our next event.
