Agri-Environment options and greenhouse gas emissions

The Scottish Government’s Rural Development Programme (SRDP) is the main fund supporting rural development in Scotland. It supports economic, environmental and social measures to encourage sustainable development within rural Scotland.
The programme provides funding for projects covering farming, forestry, rural enterprise and business development, diversification and rural tourism.

ClimateXChange was asked to review the impact of the programme’s Agri-Environment options, i.e. the suggested incentives to farmers and land managers to ensure they manage their land in an environmentally sensitive way.

This report:

• assesses the existing SRDP options in relation to their impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon sequestration;
• evaluates potential additional benefits from the SRDP options with regards to their GHG impacts; and
• provides an easy to use matrix of the potential SRDP options.

The research found that most SRDP measures provide benefits across a range of indicators of GHG savings and reduced nutrient losses. However, there is significant geographical variation in how applicable different measures are. This can limit their potential for greenhouse gas mitigation at the national scale.