Latest figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on drained peatlands and climate change make stark reading. While these damaged wetlands cover just 0.3% of our global landmass, they emit 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year – that's equivalent to 5% of the world's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The remarkably disproportionate data outlines the critical role peatlands can have in cutting carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change. These wetlands store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world, and mighty sequestering powers aside, also preserve biodiversity, improve water quality and minimise flood risk.
Given the clear climate-wins, it's little wonder that 'paludiculture' - sustainable agriculture that re-wets drained peatlands for productive cultivation of crops - is gaining momentum and markets are emerging. A global market is already in place for reed, which is used for thatching, while sphagnum mosses are increasingly substituted for peat in horticulture and wood for construction. Both sundew and cloudberry are beginning to be cultivated for medicinal markets, and cattail and sedges are under trial with possible end-products being developed.
Yet despite the potential and possibilities that paludiculture presents, progress could still be described as painfully slow. Wetland researchers and developers are certain their system of agriculture will be widely practised but on a global scale, implementation so far is scarce, totalling only a few thousand hectares. Why? A huge part of the answer lies in regulation and rules.
Paludiculture pain-points
Professor Christian Fritz is a peatland scientist and eco-hydrologist at Radboud University, The Netherlands. He is certain that today's legislation doesn't, on the whole, suit paludiculture.
“When it comes to regulations, laws, subsidies and who's paying for the costs now and in the future - all efforts are put on drainage-based agriculture,” he says. “So, against this setting, paludiculture just isn't 'there'.”
“There are certain outlier situations where paludiculture can be viable, but these typically exist alongside biodiversity goals and payments,” he adds. “A transition [is underway], but right now, we're not talking about a fast one.”
Dr Anke Nordt, paludiculture researcher from the Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology, University of Greifswald, Germany, agrees with Fritz. She also highlights how the long history and vast extent of peatland drainage has shaped today's less-than-ideal, at least for paludiculture, political frameworks. One example, she points to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that implements subsidies and other programmes to ensure a stable food supply, safeguard farmers' incomes and protect the environment. Here, standards protect wetlands and peatlands yet subsidies remain in place for farming on drained peatlands, affecting the competitiveness of paludiculture.
The remarkably disproportionate data outlines the critical role peatlands can have in cutting carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change
“Also, paludiculture products are not defined as agriculture in the [CAP] tariffs,” explains Nordt. “So if you, as a farmer, cultivate cattail, or even the more established reed, you just won't receive your subsidies anymore.”
“[Paludiculture] pioneers are frustrated, so... we are currently in touch [with the regulators] at the national level and are trying to get the next Europe-wide CAP amended,” she adds.
In a similar vein, the EU Water Framework Directive and Germany's Federal Water Resources Act, both laid out to protect water bodies, do not help large-scale rewetting projects. These regulations demand costly and time-consuming approval procedures while often favouring existing, peatland-drained watercourses.
“The EU Water Framework protects a watercourse and its species that were in place, say ten years ago, when the land was drained,” says Nordt. “Many regulations contradict each other. Farmers have concerns about nature conservation requirements related to paludiculture, and fear restrictions or a ban on harvests.”
On top of regulations, any rewetting peatland endeavour has to gain permission from the associated landowners. Then, with the, often, very many permissions in place, the farmer or agriculture company must provide huge upfront costs for rewetting a region, grapple with a still-evolving value chain, and deal with the thorny issue of revenue.
Both Nordt and Fritz point out how huge question marks hang over who will actually buy the paludiculture crop – could it be destined for, say, the paper industry or a biorefinery – and how many tonnes will be required, and at what price? According to Fritz, a big obstacle for farmers is finding a stable demand for their crop, yet on the other hand, factories and businesses will only establish production if they can be assured of a substantial amount of biomass for many years. And as Nordt puts it: “For any farmer wanting to develop, scale and market paludiculture products, this can all be overwhelming.”
The way forward
One solution to tackling the issues around paludiculture crop demand and upfront finances is for governments – be it at a regional or national level – to implement a demand-side buffer. Here, the government would buy the crop from the farmer and funnel it through companies that may use it for numerous purposes, such as burning biomass, building substrates or livestock feed or bedding. “If there's a delay on a company's side, [the crop] can find at least one or two alternative uses,” highlights Fritz. “Governments [in Europe] have made huge investments to have both demand-side and supply-side buffers in the natural gas and gasoline market – this is a very common practice.”
On regulation complexity, Nordt highlights the need for alignment between EU climate policy objectives and Member States - but is heartened by the EU process of 'climate mainstreaming' already underway, which calls for all programmes to consider climate priorities when designing and implementing policy. Germany also released a National Peatland Protection Strategy in 2021 to scale-up protection and restoration action.
Looking to the future, technological innovations can only ease paludiculture development. For example, remote sensing could be used to monitor peatlands, providing paludiculture players with some much-needed data. “We need to continue with research and development projects that can gather more detail and data, and relate these to products and site-management,” says Nordt. “Farmers need information on how paludiculture works on the farm scale – we are now at the point where we've had long-term innovation projects in place for around ten years – it's time to get [paludiculture] established.”
Still, amidst the chaotic backdrop, progress is undeniable. More and more projects, such as WETHORIZONS, ALFAwetlands, MOOSland and PRINCESS are exploring economical ways to re-wet peatlands. The Germany-based 'Paludi Alliance', home to some 14 companies mainly from the construction, packaging, insulation, wood and paper industries, is building scale-able value chains for paludiculture products. And more and more start-ups are taking off.
Partnering with the University of Greifswald, so-called 'Moor and More' has built a tiny house from paludiculture products to demonstrate exactly what this agriculture system can do. Meanwhile, 'ZukunftMoor', or Future Peatland, has joined forces with Greifswald Moor Centrum and Greifswald-based Succow Foundation, and is rewetting peatlands of 20 hectares or more to farm sphagnum moss. The start-up hopes to engage more investors as well as business and science partners to advance production and is already farming in Lower Saxony.
“It's so important right now to support our early pioneers,” she asserts. “[The field] is evolving and I think there's many products that can be developed from the plant fibres that we haven't even thought of yet.”
“Paludiculture is vital - there are still many issues to resolve but we have a growing community that is working on these, and this is a very good thing,” she adds.