The University of Córdoba is to take part in the project ‘Sustainable Agriculture and the Carbon Arithmetic. LIFE+AGRICARBON,’ coordinated by the Spanish Association of Agriculture and Conservation / Suelos Vivos (AEAC/SV) in association with the IFAPA (The Andalusian Institute for Research and Training in Agriculture, Food and Fisheries) and the European Federation of Conservation Agriculture. The project has become the most economically supported Spanish initiative, and will receive 2.7 million euros in the European convocation LIFE + Environment, of which 46% is an EU contribution.

The project aims to develop actions that fix a limit of up to 1,500 kilograms more CO2 per year than in conventional conditions. This allows for every area similar to the size of a football field the equivalent of travelling by car from Córdoba to Brussels almost 8 times. On top of that, CO2 emissions will be reduced comparatively by at least 20%.

In this way, the benefits of Conservation Agriculture will be boosted, as they have already been tested as an efficient brake to desertification, erosion and an improvement in the quality of water, and will contribute to the adaptation of the agricultural system in the new climatic stage, a consequence of global warming, without loss of agricultural product.

Of the many tools this project is due to develop, the construction of a digital platform, available by internet, through which CO2 emissions and energy consumption of agricultural operations can be evaluated, is worth highlighting.  As a result of this method, any farmer can find out, by entering into the system the relative variables and the climatic characteristics of the area, the crops planted and the agricultural method used, how much CO2 is being emitted into the atmosphere, how much energy is being used, as well as how the level of emissions can be reduced and energy efficiency increased.