Carbon farming is presented in EU communication and policy documents as a strategy focused on managing plants and soil to capture greenhouse gases. It is seen as a viable practice for restoring soil health and mitigating and adapting to climate change.
The current EU policy narratives identified in the study, conducted by researchers within Mistra Environmental Communication, are centred around humans and propose business-as-usual technological approaches dominated by economic goals. But the researchers argue that it is necessary to stop seeing soil ecosystems just as a resource to be managed. An example is to stop seeing soil as a “vast reservoir of carbon” and instead start recognising them as a source of life that we depend on.
According to the study, EU’s narrative hinders alternative ways of imagining our relationship to soil and paths to sustainable transformation, making it difficult to envision alternative futures.
The study gathered views from carbon farming stakeholders in Sweden and compared them with the EU policy documents. This contrast revealed alternative ways to think about sustainability challenges and opportunities in agriculture. Chiefly, EU policy maintains the age-old notion that, through science and technology, humans can overcome social-ecological crises related to climate, soil health and food security. This indicates a denial of the deep transformations needed for agricultural systems to adapt to the crises.
Stakeholders, on the other hand, welcomed flexibility and experimentation in diverse farming methods. This shows that, for local farmers, action that generates social, economic and environmental value can be just as important as, if not more important than, the absolute certainty provided by scientific rigour. In other words, an excessive reliance on evidence-based decision-making was viewed with caution.
In conclusion, the study identifies and reveals dominant narratives buried within EU policies, which at a surface level appear to strive for transformations in sustainability but, in reality, reinforce the status quo. Applying a relational futures lens to the analysis allows us to break down these narratives, which in turn invites us to ask more nuanced questions about desired futures and how to move towards them.
Read the full scientific article here.
This text was written by Léon Videla Jeppsson, Intern within Focus area 5 – Transformation.
Popular science summary of Barrineau, S., Do, T., & Powell, N. (2025). Creating alternative future trajectories for carbon farming through a relational lens: Pathways towards transformative social-ecological change in the European Union. Ecosystems and People, 21(1), 2461535. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2025.2461535
