ERA Strategies for Circular Agriculture to reduce GHG emissions within & between farmingsystems across an agro-ecological gradient CircAgric

The overall objective of CircAgric-GHG is to enhance circularity within and between farm typologies across an agro-ecological gradient from the arctic climate in Norway, via the oceanic climate of UK and Ireland, continental climate of Germany, Mediterranean climate of Spain and Italy to the tropics in Kenya and the dry and temperate climate of South Africa – in order to drive GHG mitigation and wider food system sustainability at multiple scales (farm, local, regional, national and international). In 2024, the project staff met in Galway, Ireland for a physical meeting to plan the rest of the project period. The meeting was useful as we reviewed progress in the various work packages and from the various participants. Italy has ended their experiment with the allocation of residual raw material from bakeries. Italy has also evaluated how grazing in the Italian Alps is utilized using satellite observations. In Spain, they have found that the carbon footprint in sheep production can be reduced by a third by using the right grazing strategy. The carbon footprint can also be reduced from milk production through good management of the farm's resources. Norwegian researchers from the University of Oslo and NIBIO have been in Kenya and measured methane gas from sheep, goats, cattle and camels under tropical conditions using a drone equipped with a methane gas meter. The project enters the final phase where all data must be summarized and presented. This will take place, among other things, at the Greenhouse Gas and Animal Agriculture conference, which will be held in one of the participating countries, Kenya, in October 2025. The conference has assigned a session to disseminate results from this and other projects that work with circularity. We have published 13 news on the webpage of the project (www.circagric.org) and the news have been further shared on socail media via 14 entries on Facebook, 10 via LinkedIn and 22 via X.

European farms trend towards specialisation and high yields but have become increasingly dependent on external inputs to compensate for declining recycling of nutrients. Farms in sub-Saharan Africa less specialized, have low inputs and yields and higher vulnerability to climate change. In Europe, re-coupling of livestock and crop systems could play an important role in more efficient (re)cycling of resources across livestock and crops, and food value chains. In Africa, integrating sustainability and resilience objectives with enhanced food security could avoid some of the trade-offs currently experienced in Europe (e.g., high GHG emissions and N pollution). CircAgric-GHG represents 17 world-leading researchers from 8 countries with expertise in livestock, cropping systems, farm and landscape modelling, LCA and ecosystem services. The consortium will draw upon state-of-the-art knowledge, research methods and models to assess how circular practices can deliver sustainable food systems. Using farm typologies as a baseline, the extent of existing circular practice implementation will be evaluated. Promising practices to enhance circularity will be proposed across typologies and agro-ecological zones. High-resolution modelling of resource cycling and GHG emissions at farm and landscape level will be undertaken using process- and farm models, with remote sensing of particularly uncertain land use emission fluxes using novel satellite and drone technology. LCA will be applied to integrate modelling outputs into environmental footprints of food production, developing a novel framework for future projects. Farm-scale modelling will also inform a marginal abatement cost curve and a decision support tool, enabling robust comparison of GHG abatement efficacy of specific circular practices. Stakeholder dialogue via workshops and focus groups will identify systemic lock-ins and levers pertinent to wide scale deployment of circular practices, culminating in a Transition Roadmap