An inventory of farming practices and their impacts on the environment and climate

The database currently includes 10 broad categories of farming practices. In the long term, the tool aims to include around 30 broad categories of farming practices.

The database utilises synthesis research papers. These papers synthesise the results of multiple individual research papers aimed at testing the same conceptual hypothesis. Synthesis studies may be:

The database reports each farming practice or a sub-category of it, with three types of fiches. The first type of fiche is called general fiche and summarises all the environmental and climate impacts found in the review of research papers for this practice. The second type of fiche is the single-impact fiche, which provides a deeper insight into each of the impacts of the farm practice (e.g. carbon sequestration, biodiversity) with more detailed information. There are as many impact fiches as impacts reported in the general fiche. The third type of fiche are summaries of each synthesis paper (the meta-analysis or systematic reviews) and consist of individual reports providing more comprehensive information about the results reported in each synthesis paper, particularly concerning the effects of soil, climate, and management practices.

The results of the literature review process are synthesised in three matrices. In the ‘matrix linking farming practices and PMEF impact indicators’ and the ‘matrix linking farming practices and PMEF result indicators’, each cell indicates the effect of each farming practice on the specific impact or result indicator correspondingly. The ‘overall matrix of the impacts’ indicates the effect of each farming practice on each specific issue of the CAP Specific Objectives 4, 5, 6 and 9. The effects are characterised as positive, negative, no effect, uncertain or no evidence based on the scientific evidence found in the synthesis paper review.