Carbon-Credit Systems in Agriculture: A Review of Literature

(2016) highlight the sensitivity of forest carbon credits to 20 the initial age-class structure of the forest estate, the harvest-priority algorithm, the starting target harvest level, and the timing of harvest adjustment from the starting level to the baseline level. [...] (2017) highlight how participation is affected by the uncertainty in the Alberta carbon-offset development process, using the ECB Lethbridge Biogas facility23 as the focal study area, and emphasize the potential for uncertainty to negatively impact the reputation of the province in terms of achieving its emission-reduction targets. [...] According to the findings of these studies, the cause for the producers’ reluctance is the inadequacy of the revenue coming from the offset scheme to cover the forgone costs, given carbon prices and the emissions levels per farm. [...] (2016) and Boaitey (2017) suggest that the presence of misalignment of incentives in the beef supply chain, such as substantial rewards to the producers who do not incur any additional cost from the adoption of the innovation, further discourages the probability of adopting. [...] However, due to the scarcity of published studies, it is too early to project either the economic potential for farmers to earn revenue or the environmental prospects of the province’s agricultural sector contributing to the long-term goals of the Paris agreement.