About this Research Topic
Climate-smart food systems (CSFS) deal with multi-scale approaches that address synergies and tradeoffs among targets such as GHG mitigation, climate-change adaptation, food security, economic growth, poverty alleviation and ecosystem service provision. Within this framework, the notion of net zero carbon refers to the balance between the carbon released to, and the carbon removed from the atmosphere per unit of time.
Getting net zero balance in the food industry will require both climate-smart agricultural practices (trees in croplands, minimum or zero tillage, cover crops, etc.) as well as market-based incentives (voluntary carbon markets) to balance carbon emission sources and carbon storing sinks. There is scientific agreement on procedures to assess carbon emissions, but scientists do not still agree on unifying approaches to account for carbon sequestration in biological sinks. However, carbon sequestration must become a priority in order to find reliable paths to net zero options.
The objective of this Research Topic is to update scientific knowledge and investigate nature-based carbon sequestration options. We would like to invite the submission of original research, review papers that aim at strengthening and expanding terrestrial carbon sinks. Although not limited, contributions on the following sub-topics will be welcome:
* Cross-scale strategies to increase carbon sequestration in food production systems.
* Synergies and tradeoffs between the need to increase food production and to strengthen terrestrial carbon sinks.
* The potential of woodlands and grazing lands to increase carbon sequestration in biomass and soil.
* Technological solutions to increase nature-based carbon sequestration processes in food production.
* Sustainable intensification or agro-ecology as a way to increase carbon sinks in agricultural systems?
All submissions should address all three pillars of climate-smartness. Therefore, submissions that do not focus on trade-offs and synergies between mitigation, adaptation and productivity should assess the impacts of the net-zero technologies on those pillars.
Getting net zero balance in the food industry will require both climate-smart agricultural practices (trees in croplands, minimum or zero tillage, cover crops, etc.) as well as market-based incentives (voluntary carbon markets) to balance carbon emission sources and carbon storing sinks. There is scientific agreement on procedures to assess carbon emissions, but scientists do not still agree on unifying approaches to account for carbon sequestration in biological sinks. However, carbon sequestration must become a priority in order to find reliable paths to net zero options.
The objective of this Research Topic is to update scientific knowledge and investigate nature-based carbon sequestration options. We would like to invite the submission of original research, review papers that aim at strengthening and expanding terrestrial carbon sinks. Although not limited, contributions on the following sub-topics will be welcome:
* Cross-scale strategies to increase carbon sequestration in food production systems.
* Synergies and tradeoffs between the need to increase food production and to strengthen terrestrial carbon sinks.
* The potential of woodlands and grazing lands to increase carbon sequestration in biomass and soil.
* Technological solutions to increase nature-based carbon sequestration processes in food production.
* Sustainable intensification or agro-ecology as a way to increase carbon sinks in agricultural systems?
All submissions should address all three pillars of climate-smartness. Therefore, submissions that do not focus on trade-offs and synergies between mitigation, adaptation and productivity should assess the impacts of the net-zero technologies on those pillars.
Keywords: carbon sequestration, net-zero carbon, Climate-smart food systems, terrestrial carbon sinks
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
