Denmark is returning 15% of its farmland back to nature | Hacker News Reader

Denmark is returning 15% of its farmland back to nature

fastcompany.com

26 pointsgniting11 comments

I've seen a bit of confusion regarding this. First, it's 10% of Denmark's total land area, which is roughly equivalent to 15% of farmland area. Second, the conversion of farmland area into nature and forests is mainly for improving water quality, as excess nitrogen from agriculture has essentially killed the rivers and coastal waters through oxygen depletion from algae.

Regarding global warming and CO2, the area conversion of peatlands will help, but the major change here is the introduction of a carbon tax for the entire agricultural industry. And to end confusion regarding other emissions than CO2, it's actually a CO2-equivalent (CO2e) tax, which includes a range of other gasses. E.g., 1kg of methane is 25kg CO2e.

If you'd like to read more, see the two PDF documents below, which are the main official documents. They're in Danish, but upload them to Claude or ChatGPT, and you'll have a much better source of information if you'd like to know more about the specifics and how the actual implementation is planned :)

[1] https://www.regeringen.dk/media/13261/aftale-om-et-groent-da...

[2] https://mgtp.dk/media/iinpdy3w/aftale_om_implementering_af_e...

Discussion (95 points, 13 hours ago, 123 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42226185

Wasnt it like 10% in the last article i saw?

Next one will be 20%

Ridiculous.

First? You need fallow land, in case of lower yields due to drought/etc, and this includes world wide issues such as war.

Second? Crop rotated, tiled (drained) land, and land with all the rocks, tree roots cleaned out is as gold.

Reverting emergency spare land back to trees is the very last thing anyone should want. Every other climate issue should be resolved first.

This is just plain dumb.

Thanks for telling us, I guess.

As you know, the reason for this is to improve water quality, or at least stop the decline. Do you have any thoughts about how to achieve that goal?

Bogs are excellent carbon sinks. Died plant matter turns into peat and in the long term to coal. The water isolates the carbon dioxide from getting out and is full of rare species that help taking care of it.

Why are trees and farmland incompatible? Can cows and stuff not graze from trees or something? There are all kibds of trees, I'm sure there's something that doesn't drown everything around it in shade and grows low for grazing. And you can plant stuff far apart... I guess the trees they want are big chunky carbon sinks with no other purpose?

How much spare production do you imagine they need? 10% extra 30%? 50%?

Why do you think this is being done, then?

Farmland is approximately 2/3 of the country. Most is being used for animal feed and then the animals are exported. I think we’ll make due.

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