The transition from the FADN accounting network to the FSDN sustainability network brings new methodologies measuring carbon footprints at the farm level and linking spatial data with greenhouse gas emissions modeling.

A new era of sustainability monitoring in EU agriculture

The agricultural sector in the European Union is undergoing a key transformation in the area of environmental impact monitoring. The existing Farm Accountancy Network (FADN), which currently covers approximately 75,000 commercial farms representing 3.5 million European businesses, is gradually being transformed into the Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN).

This new network aims to integrate, in addition to economic indicators, environmental and social dimensions within the Common Agricultural Policy (SAP). Central to this transformation is the development of a prototype emissions calculators, which is supported by the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) in cooperation with the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The aim is to create a harmonised instrument that will be in place by 2029 will enable comparable greenhouse gas calculations for agricultural sectors, LULUCF (land use, land use change and forestry) and energy.

The importance of the LULUCF sector and the greenhouse gas balance

The inclusion of the LULUCF sector in the emissions calculator was the main topic of an expert workshop organised by DG AGRI and the JRC in June. 2026 with the participation of experts from eight Member States.

According to data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) from the greenhouse gas inventory, the entire LULUCF sector at EU level is dominated by net removals in forests and harvested wood products. In contrast, cropland, permanent grassland and wetlands represent net sources of emissions. Within EU agricultural land, net emissions amount to 48,455 Mt CO₂eq, with a significant share coming from land use change and the management of arable land and grassland. More than half of the Member States have already moved from basic methods in their national inventories Tier 1 to more advanced methods Tier 2 (national emission factors) or Tier 3 (spatial modeling).

The EEA also presented a portal GHG Knowledge Hub, which provides an integrated approach to data, methodological guidelines and tools for visualising emissions and carbon stock change factors.

JRC methodological approaches: From simple equations to process models

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) presented the project iMRV three basic methodological approaches for calculating LULUCF emissions at the FSDN farm level:

• Activity and emission factor based approach (Tier 1 / Tier 2): It uses the standard equations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) combined with company activity data and national or specific carbon stock change factors. This approach is transparent, simple and close to traditional national inventories.
• Model emulator (Tier 2 / Tier 3): It uses statistical emulators developed from complex process models (such as DayCent). It offers high computational speed and flexibility without the need for calibration for specific site conditions, but depends on the accuracy of the training data.
• Complex process modeling at the land level (Tier 3): It uses full process models (e.g. DayCent or MEMS) operating at high spatial resolution. It allows for detailed capture of specific management practices on the farm, but requires extensive input data and high computing capacity.

Practical experience of member countries: France, Germany and Finland

During the workshop, three Member States that already link FADN data with LULUCF emissions modelling presented their national systems:

• France (INRAE): Developed a software package FADN2Footprint, which links FADN data with the land parcel registration and identification system (LPIS). The research focuses on six key measures with the greatest mitigation potential: cropland-grassland conversion, agroforestry, hedgerows, cover crops, conversion of forage crops to temporary grasslands and peatland restoration. It uses a comparison with a so-called „average virtual farm“ to overcome the lack of historical data.
• Germany (Thünen Institute): Developing a centralized tool AgriGHG Tool operating via API. The tool ensures consistency with national greenhouse gas inventories and for modeling soil organic carbon dynamics (SOC) uses the model RothC in a network with resolution 100 mx 100 m (1 ha). He pays particular attention to drained organic soils and groundwater level modeling using machine learning.
• Finland (Luke): Connected the emission module to the system EconomyDoctor, which processes data from approximately 650 FADN accounting farms representing 23,000 Finnish businesses. To calculate changes in carbon stocks in mineral soils, a process model is used Yasso07 (Tier 3), which includes detailed data on crop residues, cover crops, manure and meteorological conditions.

Key challenges and future prospects

The integration of the LULUCF sector into the FSDN emissions calculator faces several methodological and technical obstacles. The most significant of these is the absence of historical land use data for the past 20 years, which requires linking FSDN data with spatial data from the system. IACS/LPIS and with remote sensing (CopernicusExperts also emphasize the need to distinguish between year-to-year variability caused by weather and long-term trends linked to climate change and management.

The joint objective of DG AGRI and the JRC is to find a balance between the accuracy of the calculations and their harmonisation at EU level. In the near future, it is planned to test the proposed methodological approaches on a selected sample of farms in voluntary Member States, with the evaluation of the results and further comparison to be carried out at the next workshop in 2018. 2027. JRi&CO2AI