The worldwide emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions
has increased focus on the potential to mitigate emissions through
climate-smart agricultural practices, including regenerative, digital,
and controlled environment farming systems. The effectiveness of these
solutions largely depends on their ability to address environmental
concerns, generate economic returns, and meet supply chain needs.
In this Review, we summarize the state of knowledge on the GHG impacts
and profitability of these three existing and emerging farming systems.
Although we find potential for CO2 mitigation in all three
approaches (depending on site-specific and climatic factors), we point
to the greater level of research covering the efficacy of regenerative
and digital agriculture in tackling non-CO2 emissions (i.e.,
N2O and CH4), which account for the majority
of agriculture’s GHG footprint. Despite this greater research
coverage, we still find significant methodological and data limitations
in accounting for the major GHG fluxes of these practices, especially
the lifetime CH4 footprint of more nascent climate-smart
regenerative agriculture practices. Across the approaches explored,
uncertainties remain about the overall efficacy and persistence of
mitigationparticularly with respect to the offsetting of soil
carbon sequestration gains by N2O emissions and the lifecycle
emissions of controlled environment agriculture systems compared to
traditional systems. We find that the economic feasibility of these
practices is also system-specific, although regenerative agriculture
is generally the most accessible climate-smart approach. Robust incentives
(including carbon credit considerations), investments, and policy
changes would make these practices more financially accessible to
farmers.