Sectoral activities: Agriculture

Strategy

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The successful implementation of NbS in freshwater restoration relies heavily on collaboration and coordination across sectors due to their interdependencies and shared reliance on healthy ecosystems. Each Sectoral Strategy highlights key connections with others, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches to overcome challenges and leverage opportunities for transformation.

Agriculture has significant overlaps with multiple sectors, including Peat Extraction, Navigation, Insurance, and WSS. Sustainable agricultural practices, such as wetland restoration and soil conservation, can enhance water quality, regulate water levels for Navigation, and reduce flood risks, which directly benefits the Insurance sector. Improved land management can also stabilize peatlands, supporting the restoration of Peat Extraction sites. However, trade-offs like the economic reliance on drained peatlands and competition for water resources must be addressed. This can be achieved through regulatory reforms, financial incentives, and platforms for stakeholder dialogue that bring together farmers, policymakers, and private sector actors to find mutually beneficial solutions.

Briefing

Agriculture is highly heterogenous but shares a common reliance on water as a key resource and is one of the main land uses in and around river floodplains, wetlands and peatlands. Agricultural food production systems generate diffuse pollution including greenhouse gas emissions and are vulnerable to droughts and floods made worse by climate change. However, adoption of on-farm and catchment wide Nature-based Solutions can improve ecosystem functioning, act as carbon sinks, reduce pollution and improve biodiversity, while helping to buffer floods and increasing water retention in soil and groundwater. This will enable the sector, and Europe, to adapt to Climate Change. MERLIN will help share knowledge about the benefits and practicalities of NbS.

Roundtables

The MERLIN roundtables aim to build a Community of Practice linking the economic sector representatives with MERLIN scientific and implementation partners, MERLIN scientists meet the sector representatives three times during the four years of the project.

Roundtables 1: to understand the motivation and interest of sectors and the impact of nature restoration on the sectors.
Roundtables 2: to share examples of river restorations and their impacts on the sectors; to focus on the MERLIN cases and to discuss pro and contra arguments; to extend the number of involved stakeholders. Introduce cross-sectoral discussions, discuss policy levers and sectoral cooperation opportunities.
Roundtables 3: to discuss sectoral strategies including value chain impacts and cross sectoral needs to ensure MERLIN outputs speak to the sector.

Roundtable 1

Sorry, no Roundtable 1 protocol for agriculture available.

Roundtable 2

The Agriculture Sector Roundtable brought together 23 experts from private, non-governmental and public organisations across Europe. The event aimed to better understand how MERLIN and the sector could collaborate in NbS implementation and upscaling. In the Sector Briefing, eight cooperation points had been identified, which were dedicated to help the sector contribute to the EU's net zero emissions target.

Roundtable 3

The Agriculture Sector Roundtable brought together 15 experts from private, non-governmental and public organisations across Europe. The event aimed to better understand how MERLIN and the sector could collaborate in Nature-based solutions (NbS) implementation and upscaling. We also wanted to get feedback and recommendations for the draft agriculture strategy.