Klimafarm - economically and ecologically viable grassland management that conserves peatland soil

Germany’s goal to reach net zero by 2045 remains ambitious, and in order to achieve this, it is necessary to balance or drastically reduce a pool of residual emissions. The agricultural sector and the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector are significant contributors to this pool, together ranking as the fourth largest anthropogenic source of greenhouse gases. Drained and converted peatlands are one of the largest emitters in this sector, despite their relatively small area. However, these areas are also part of another major challenge, the biodiversity crisis. Intensive farming and dairy farming are both based on monoculture and the massive application of fertilizer in both cases has a deleterious effect on biodiversity.

We introduce the Klimafarm, focusing particularly on its greenhouse gas monitoring; the project is one of the four funded German pilot initiatives (“Moorpiloten”) whose aim is to rewet agricultural peatlands and explore economically viable paludiculture methods for farmers. The Klimafarm project presents an innovative approach to simultaneously addressing two major challenges—reducing CO₂ emissions and mitigating biodiversity loss—through the implementation of extensive paludiculture on rewetted grasslands in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany. This aims to stop the degradation of organic rich soils and conserves the large carbon stocks during the rewetting of drained peatlands and seeks to mitigate biodiversity loss by implementing a system with a single cut per year within a diversified grassland ecosystem. In such a scenario paludiculture is enabling further usage of the land while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and restoring wetland-type ecosystems.

The project is comprised of three distinct components, with each group focusing on a different topic: the management of the farm and value chain development, biodiversity research and greenhouse gas monitoring. Here, we focus on the greenhouse gas monitoring, which is implemented on three project sites and two intensive used reference sites. We will detail our eddy covariance and chamber-based CH₄, CO₂, and N₂O flux measurements, present our methodological framework, and discuss preliminary 2023-2025 data.