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The global production of vegetable oils exceeds 200 million tonnes per year, with almost 40% for food use, and around 330 M hectares occupied by oil crops. The most produced is palm (40% if palm kernel oil is included), followed by soybean oil (28%), rapeseed oil (12%) and sunflower oil (9%). Some of these oil crops, particularly oil palm plantations and soy cultivations, are among the main drivers of global land use changes (LUC) and deforestation. In particular palm oil has been one of the most highly criticized due to the link between oil palm cultivation expansion and the loss of primary tropical forests, observed in recent decades. This issue has generated two different responses in the food sector: some players decided to produce and/or use deforestation-free palm oil. Other actors chosen to replace palm oil with other vegetable oils, such as soybean, rapeseed and sunflower oil.Considering the importance of a proper land management in view of the food-ecosystems-resources nexus, this study assesses the potential LUC and the related GHG emissions that can occur by using sustainable palm oil or replacing it with the other oils for food use. A methodology was developed to assess the potential GHG emissions from the LUC due to alternative oil crops expansion at detrimental of high carbon content areas, such as forests or perennial croplands, and the GHG emissions from the production process though a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).Under the scenario of 100% replacement of palm and palm kernel oil globally, the extra-land needed to produce the additional alternative oils was determined in their three top producer countries using yield data from literature. An expansion algorithm considering suitability and distance from roads and existing oil crops was developed to determine the potential LUC which may occur in the selected countries. The potential GHG emissions from deforestation and other LUC were calculated from the carbon stock data of the FAO Forest Resource Assessment and IPCC; the field production of the four oils was reconstructed to calculate anthropogenic GHG emissions using relevant LCA existing databases. Results show that deforestation-free palm oil is the less impacting in terms of GHG emissions per oil ton thanks to its far highest oil yield. Replacing sustainable palm oil with any other alternative oil is never a favourable solution (Fig. 1), entailing a potential GHG emissions increase from 0.94-0.96 Mg CO2 per ton of palm oil replaced by sunflower oil produced in Ukraine or in Russia (where deforestation is unlikely), to 4.38 Mg CO2 per ton of palm oil replaced by soybean oil produced in Brazil, up to 13.65 Mg CO2 per ton of palm oil replaced by soybean oil produced in Argentina. Figure 1. GHG emissions in Mg CO2eq t-1 from LCA (blue bars) and LUC (green bars) with 100% palm oil replacement. Based on national trends and forest policies, potential deforestation can be likely (full green), likely with limitation (dense dots), likely with offset (oblique lines), unlikely (scattered dots). Vertical lines for palm oil include deforestation.

Cover crops are cultivated during unproductive periods to provide ecosystem services, such as preventing nitrogen (N) leaching, and have the potential to increase soil organic carbon (C), thus contributing to climate change mitigation. Their effect on soil C storage depends on C input, which is challenging to quantify due to belowground sampling (roots and C deposited in the soil). Leguminous cover crops (in pure stands or in mixtures) increase the productivity of following main crops due to high N input, but also the risk of N losses, compromising the mitigation effect. As C and N services vary with cover crop type, tradeoffs could be minimized by species selection. The aim of this study was to assess C input from different cover crop species and mixtures, as well as N uptake in their biomass, and their effect on soil mineral N (SMN) and yield of the following crop.We conducted a field experiment in 2020-2021 at Foulum, Denmark (temperate oceanic climate, sandy loam soil), with seven treatments (five cover crops, control with volunteers, and bare soil) replicated four times. Cover crops undersown in spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in May 2020 were: Lolium perenne L. (ryegrass, RG), Trifolium pratense L. (red clover, RC), Plantago lanceolata L. (plantain, PL) and the mixtures RG-PL and RG-PL-RC. On August 24, 2020, after barley harvest, PVC cylinders (diameter: 29.5 cm, height: 30 cm) were inserted in each plot (25 cm depth) and used for 13C-CO2 multiple-pulse isotopic labeling. Two sessions per week were conducted until cover crop sampling in November 2020, when C and N in above- and belowground biomass, as well C deposited in the soil were determined. Monthly soil sampling (20 cm depth) was performed from August 2020 until April 2021 to assess SMN. Then barley was sown to evaluate cover crops residual effect.Aboveground biomass was lowest in RG (1.5 Mg ha-1), and highest in RG-PL-RC (5.4 Mg ha-1). Total C input (above- and belowground) ranged from 1.6 to 4.3 Mg ha-1, with RG-PL-RC (highest) being significantly higher than RG-PL and RG (lowest). The same pattern applied to total N input, ranging from 74 to 202 kg ha-1. All cover crop treatments had lower SMN than bare soil and volunteers in August 2020. SMN increased from August until April 2021 with all cover crops except RG, and decreased with bare soil and volunteers. SMN in April was 15 kg ha-1 higher with RC and RG-PL-RC than RG. Barley yield following leguminous cover crops was comparable to plots fertilized with 100 kg ha-1 of mineral N, while non-legumes to 40 kg ha-1. Overall, the mixture with RC provided the greatest C input and positive residual effect. The small change in SMN in April indicate that biomass N was converted into mineral N and taken up by barley during the growing season, thus not increasing the risk of N losses.

The sustainable policies and practices such as agricultural, forestry and land management are crucial for ensuring the long-term provision of ecosystem services. According to the European Green Deal strategy, at least 3 billion more trees should be planted in the European Union by 2030. In support of this target, the Italian National Forest Strategy proposes actions aimed at reforestation, afforestation and agroforestry. Enhancing forest density and cover enhances the capacity to remove CO2 and store it as organic carbon in the global terrestrial biosphere. Spatial decision support tools can support policy makers in addressing these challenges and relevant assessment of land-based mitigation options to reduce emissions in the land sector. Despite the specific goal set in the European Green Deal strategy, there is still no clear understanding of which territory in Italy will be involved in the planned actions. Therefore, there is a need to build suitability maps to determine the future change of the land cover in connection with the European strategies and planned actions up to 2030. This study suggests not only possible future land cover maps for the Lazio region, compiled in accordance with the land use policy, but also an assessment of the planned carbon sequestration based on the proposed maps.

Olive (Olea europaea L.) trees are traditionally cultivated in the Mediterranean basin, providing both healthy food and ecosystem services, such as climate change mitigation and soil erosion control, particularly in arid areas. Despite its importance, olive phenology, as impacted by climate change, is under-studied. To tackle this gap, we assessed the potential of feed-forward artificial neural network models to predict five main olive phenophases (apex budbreak, inflorescence, flowering, pit hardening and olive maturation index 1) at their onset for cultivars ‘Picholine’, ‘Carolea’ and ‘Coratina'. The dataset was collected from seven sites across Italy during the years 1997-2000. Due to gaps in the dataset, the models were initialized by supervised training with the subset of full phenological observations, followed by semisupervised training based on the full dataset and iterative estimations of the missing observations. The softmax activation function was used in the output layer by interpreting the incremental phenological transitions as proportional to probabilities. The networks with at least four hidden layers activated by the sigmoid function and trained with the momentum method and linearly-decreasing parameters were best performing (validation RMSE of 15.5 d and 17.1 d for ‘Picholine’ and ‘Carolea’, respectively). Daily insolation consistently improved budbreak prediction with respect to daily mean temperature, suggesting the operation of photoreceptor activation mechanisms. Inflorescence was better predicted when daily minimum temperature was added, consistent with a chilling-warm requirement mechanism. Flowering was less consistent, but mean temperature was a primary controlling cue. Therefore, each phenophase is likely controlled by different climate cues. When tested on two independent flowering dates in 2017 and 2018 from one of the sites , the best performing models for each cultivar gave median errors of 4.3 d, 12.1 d, 7.4 d and 3.7 d for the ‘Picholine’, ‘Carolea’, ‘Coratina’ and the combinaed ‘Picholine+Carolea+Coratina’, respectively. The worse predictions for 'Carolea' is likely due to the hypothesized sensitivity of this cultivar to climate change, that occurred in the years between the training and the testing observations. Therefore, the olive sensitivity to climate change could be strongly cultivar-dependent, which calls for more in-depth investigation in the future. The calibrated models can be used both as operational and hypothesis-testing tools to study climate change effects on olive phenology.

Sustainable agricultural and food processing practices are often proposed as attractive strategies enabling food systems to respond to the challenges posed by climate change in terms of adaptation and mitigation. However, information on the actual contribution to climate change provided by sustainable food production systems is lacking in literature. With the intention to contribute to a more informed debate, this study aims at quantify the actual impact on climate of sustainable practices applied to a grape-to-wine system in Italy. The overall budget of greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes is assessed at wine farm level, from the vineyard to the final bottle of wine, through an integration of methods, including the eddy covariance technique, the life cycle assessment (LCA) and the IPCC guidelines. All the components of the GHG budget have been considered: the (a) biogenic GHG fluxes and the (b) anthropogenic GHG emissions generated for the grape production as well as the (c) carbon stock change due to the vineyard management and the (d) anthropogenic GHG emissions generated by the transformation of grape into wine. At the vineyard level, the overall GHG budget resulted to be close to zero, showing a potential carbon neutrality of sustainable viticulture: the sum of biogenic GHG fluxes (a) and the carbon stock change (c) resulted in a net carbon sink with a potential contribution to climate change mitigation of −0,27 ± 1,11 Mg CO2eq year−1 per hectare; while the anthropogenic GHG emissions (b) for the sustainable vineyard management accounted for 0,24 ± 0,05 Mg CO2eq ha−1 year−1. The total carbon footprint (b + d) of sustainable wine is 0,79 ± 0,14 kg CO2eq per bottle, with 15% attributable to the agricultural phase and 85% to the transformation of grape into wine. These findings indicate that sustainable wine production has in general a lower contribution to climate change. In particular, sustainable practices applied to viticulture can turn the system into a net carbon sink able to totally compensate the anthropogenic emissions for the vineyard management. Therefore, sustainable viticulture allows food production with a potential carbon neutrality without exacerbating climate change.

The calibration of a reliable phenological model for olive grown in areas characterized by great environmental heterogeneity, like Italy, where many varieties exist, is challenging and often suffers from a lack of observations, especially on budbreak. In this study, we used a database encompassing many phenological events from different olive varieties, years, and sites scattered all over Italy to identify the phases in which site-enlarged developmental rates can be well regressed against air temperature (Developmental Rate function, DR) by testing both linear and nonlinear functions. A K-fold cross-validation (KfCV) was carried out to evaluate the ability of DR functions to predict phenological development. The cross-validation showed that the phases ranging from budbreak (BBCH 01 and 07) to flowering (BBCH 61 and 65) and from the beginning of flowering (BBCH 51) to flowering can be simulated with high accuracy (r2 = 0.93-0.96, RMSE = 3.9–6.6 days) with no appreciable difference among linear and nonlinear functions. Thus, the resulting DRs represent a simple yet reliable tool for regional phenological simulations for these phases in Italy, paving the way for a reverse modeling approach aimed at reconstructing the budbreak dates. By contrast, and despite a large number of phases explored, no appreciable results were obtained on other phases, suggesting possible interplays of different drivers that need to be further investigated.

The 2030 European Union (EU) climate and energy policy framework includes for the first time a dedicated instrument concerning greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions and removals from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). Regulation 2018/841 (LULUCF Regulation) marks a significant expansion of EU climate and energy acquis, with ramifications in other sensitive areas, such as agriculture, renewable energy from wood biomass and forestry. The Regulation has had a particularly troubled negotiation history and has already been at the centre of litigation before the Court of Justice of the EU. This article analyses the implications of the LULUCF Regulation for the EU’s climate ambition in the next decade, trying to make sense of its troubled history and of its projected impacts, with a view to ascertaining whether the scepticism with which it has been welcomed is justified.

Montepulciano red grape is cultivated in the northern part of the Latium region, primarily for the production of DOC “Colli Etruschi Viterbesi” structured wines for aging. In Mediterranean areas, viticulture is closely influenced by vine water status. In this context, the practice of irrigation may alleviate water-stress-related reductions in plant development to guarantee grape quality, especially in semi-arid areas. The application of on-farm compost in a vineyard may affect grape quality without negative effects, thereby enhancing environmental sustainability. The aim of this work was to investigate the combined effect of irrigation and compost application on the Montepulciano variety in the volcanic environment of Latium region, thereby improving the polyphenol concentrations in the berries. The trial was conducted during three growing seasons (2011-2013). Irrigation was performed according to the protocol proposed by Ojeda and Saurin (2014). The pre-dawn leaf water potential (ψpd) from July to September was measured weekly for maintaining vine water status in the range between −0.4 and −0.6 Mpa. Irrigation (I) and irrigation plus compost application (IC) were compared to a non-irrigated control (C). Berry weight was not influenced by moderate irrigation, whereas titratable acidity and total soluble solids were negatively correlated to the increment of water dropped. The primary finding was a positive influence on polyphenol contents of the grapes at harvest. Best performance was highlighted in 2012 with 263 liter vine−1 of water supplied. Overall, the sustainable use of water and on-farm compost improved Montepulciano grape quality in this volcanic area, thereby enhancing the adaptation of Mediterranean viticulture to climate change conditions. Resumen Montepulciano cv. secrìa en el norte de la región Lazio de Italia para producìr vinos estructurados de la DOC “ColliEtruschiViterbesi”. En el contexto Mediterraneo la viticultura es estrechamente influenciada del estado hìdrico medioambiental. La pràctica de riego puede desminuìr el estrèshìdrico relacionado a la produciòn, y garantizar calidad de la uva. El uso del compost autoproducido puede favorecer la calidad de la uva mejorando la sostenibilidad. El objetivo de este trabajo fuèenvestigar el efecto del riego junto la aplicaciòn del compost, en la cv. Montepulciano en àreavolcànica de esa regiòn, para mejorar los polifenoles de las bayas. El proceso fuè conducido desde el 2011 hasta el 2013. El riego se realizò con arreglo al protocol de Ojeda y Saurin (2014). El potentialhìdrico de la hoja antes de amanecer (ψpd), desde Julio hasta Septiembre, fuè medido semanalmente para mantenerse en la gama – 0.4 y 0.6 Mpa. Las tesis experimentales regadas (I) y (IC), fueron comparadas con la tesi de Control (C). El peso de la baya no fuè influenciado con riego moderado; al contrario l'acidez y los sòlidossolubile han tenido una correlaciòn negativa con el incremento de agua. Es clara la influencia positiva para los polifenoles de la uva a la cosecha. La mejor actuaciònfuè del 2012 con 263 l/cepaje. En general el uso sostenible de agua y compost mejorò la calidad de la uva en este contexto volcanico, aumentando la adaptaciòn de la viticultura mediterranea a las condiciones del cambio climatico.

Despite many studies in literature demonstrate the environmental sustainability of organic food, a debate is still open in the scientific community on the effect of organic farming on global warming and climate change mitigation. This paper aims to contribute to a more informed debate on the actual contribution to climate change in terms of GHG emissions of organic and conventional agriculture. For this purpose, the production process of an organic vs conventional wholemeal bread locally produced in central Italy by a small-medium bakery enterprise was compared and the carbon footprint (CF) was assessed by means of the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology.We found that the CF of 1 kg of the conventional wholemeal bread was 24% less respect to the same organic bread, with 1,18 and 1,55 kg CO(2)eq respectively. On the contrary, if the CF is assessed per unit of cultivated area (hectare), wheat organic cultivation showed a better performance in terms of GHG emissions than conventional by 60%, with 1,15 and 2,87 Mg CO(2)eq ha(-1) respectively. The higher CF per unit of organic product is due to the lower yield per unit of area cultivated with organic farming and to the consequent attribution to a smaller amount of products of the GHG emissions generated in the field phase of the life cycle. Whereas, the CF per hectare is higher when conventional practices are applied due to the higher use of raw materials (higher seed density, agrochemicals for fertilization and plant protection) respect to the same organic system.Results of the study demonstrate that organic farming for wheat cultivation in Italy is a low-carbon agriculture with a lower contribution to climate change in terms of GHG emissions per hectare respect to the conventional wheat cultivation, although implications of the reduced productivity and the consequent need of more cultivated land should be considered. However, more research is needed to better explore the potential of organic farming and to improve organic food production, optimizing the balance between the use of resources and yields, to ensure sufficient organic food supply at global level.A more comprehensive assessment of the actual GHG emitted in the atmosphere from both organic and conventional agricultural systems can be provided when the CF is assessed per unit of area, in addition to the CF per product unit, especially if also the carbon sink of the agrosystem is included. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This is the pre-print version of the chapter"Climate change sustainable agriculture and food systems_The world after the Paris agreement"published as final paper inAchieving the Sustainable Development Goals Through Sustainable Food Systems,10 October 2019, Pages 1-262https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23969-5 lntroduction 1.1 Climate Change and Agriculture According to the fifth assessment report of the IPCC (2014), the concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere are at the highest they have been in the past 800 thousand years. Current levels of CO2 have increased by 30% from 280 ppm in pre-industrial times to 407 ppm today (2019), and they continue to rise. Present CH4 concentrations of 2000 ppb are nearly triple their pre-industrial value of 700 ppm. N2O levels reached 328 ppb in 2019 compared with the 280 ppb of pre-industrial time. Only in the past 50 years we have doubled human population (from 4 to 7 billion), increased GHG emissions by 2.5 times, doubled freshwater withdrawal, halved the agricultural land per capita (from 1. 4 to 0.7 ha) by agricul­ture intensification. This is an unprecedented velocity of transformation that our Planet and human society had never experienced. Today, the agro-food sector alone accounts for some 80% of the world freshwa­ter use, 30% of world energy demand, and more than 12% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, including indirect emissions such as those of deforesta­tion (Foley et al. 2011). Moreover, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, croplands and pastures occupy about 38% of Earth's terrestrial surface, the largest use of land on the planet (Foley et al. 2011). With global food production expected to increase 70% by 2050, and consid­ering the meat dietary changes, the sector is facing unprecedented resource pres­sures and strong perturbations to the climate systems. By 2050 more than nine billion of people will be in search of food and most of them (68%) will be living in mega-cities (UN DESA 2018). Under these circumstances, a substantial redefinition of the actual food supply chain is essential. Meanwhile, many rural-communities, which strongly depends on domestic-subsistence agriculture, will be exposed to food scarcity and accessibility. lndeed, in some regions of the world (i.e. tropics and part of temperate regions) increasing of climate extremes will produce adverse effects on agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors with yield reduction of 35% in African countries and 2% globally per decade, despite the increasing food demand (Barros et al. 2014). It is time to reflect on the global agro-food systems, its para­ doxes, inequalities and capacities to support future generations. On the other side global warming can also expand the land suitability for some crops, like wheat at high latitudes (Di Paola et al. 2018). Humanity needs to act urgently and fast, push­ ing the high-level governmental agenda (SDGs, Climate Paris agreement) as well as industry sector and citizens in the most difficult and challenging transformation of our society to feed the new two billion of people expected by 2050 and, at same time, stabilize climate below 2.0° (possibly 1.5°) and reducing the pressures on natural resources. 1.2The Paris Agreement: Implications for the Agriculture Sector The significant role that agriculture can play in climate change was relatively under­ represented in the previous discussions and decisions under the frame of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), before the Paris Agreement (PA) was adopted by the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the UNFCCC on the 12th of December 2015. Food security and food production are explicitly mentioned in the PA: in its pre­ amble the Parties recognize "the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change", and the Artide 2 highlights the importance of "increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a man­ ner that does not threaten food production". Moreover, the role of agriculture in the PA is also linked to the capacity to be a possible sink and reservoir of GHG in soils and vegetation biomass: in the Artide 5 Parties are invited to "take action to con­ serve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases". This opened to agriculture as a key sector, not only impacted by climate change but also with a great potential for mitigation. In fact, more in generai, the PA has the ambition to keep "the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change". In order to achieve this long-term temperature goal, parties are therefore committed to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks in the second half of this century. Different options are feasible and the agriculture sector can play an active role, in particular by contributing to the net emissions reduction, while guaranteeing food security. Besides, under the UNFCCC processa specific programme on agriculture was launched (the "Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture", see Box below) that provides space and opportunities for Parties to fully engage on climate related discussions in the agriculture sector in order to foster actions related to adaptation and mitigation taking into consideration the sectors vulnerabilities. In pathways limiting global warrning to 1.5 °C with limited or no overshoot, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land-Use (AFOLU) related carbon dioxide removal measures are projected to remove 0-5, 1-11, and 1-5 GtCO2 year- 1 in 2030, 2050, and 2100 respectively (IPCC 2018). Due to this key potential role plaid by the agri­ culture, the 80% of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by countries committed to actions on agricultural mitigation, and 90% ofNDCs selected agriculture as a priority sector for action on adaptation (CCAFS 2016; FAO 2016). Despite the inclusion of agriculture and the land sector in general in most NDC, this is still not enough to achieve the 2 °C goal and additional reduction targets are needed (Fujimori et al. 2016). According to the Fujimori et al. (2016) modelling exercise, large-scale negative CO2 emissions and land-based CO2 emissions­ reduction measures are required and the bioenergy crops need to be an important component in addition to agriculture, with an area of cropland used for bioenergy to be 24-36% of the total cropland. Indeed, the deployment of such a large-scale land­ related measures, like afforestation and bioenergy supply, can compete with food production raising not only food security concerns (IPCC 2018) but also increasing the environmental footprint, due to the increased use of natural resource (e.g. water and nitrogen for bioenergy crops) and environmental impacts (e.g. loss of biodiver­sity and increasing pollution from fertilizers). Furthermore, climate-related risks on food security are projected to increase under global warming, with projected net reductions in maize, rice, wheat and, potentially, other cereal yields in many regions of the world (IPCC 2018). Studies based on multi-model inter-comparisons (Schleussner et al. 2016) fore­ see a general crop yield reduction, particularly in tropics, for maize and wheat under increasing temperature scenarios, with more significant reductions projected at 2 °C than 1.5 °C. On the other side, local rice and soy yields are projected to increase in the tropics, as the positive effect of CO2 fertilization counterbalances the detrimen­tal impacts of climate change in the model projections (Schleussner et al. 2016). However, additional gains for warming above 1.5 °C resulted not significant, and yield reductions are expected for all the four widespread global crops. In the light of these evidences, trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation, as well as economie and environmental benefits, need to be addressed when balancing the need of land for bioenergy crops, reforestation or afforestation, versus the land needed for agricultural adaptation under a changing climate, not undermining food security, livelihoods, ecosystem functions and services and other aspects of sustain­able development.

The land sector plays a crucial role in the context of climate change, being both a contributor to the problem and part of its solution. On one side, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU sector) cover the 24% of global emissions, representing the second hot spot in the contribution to climate change after the energy sector. On the other side, this sector offers the exclusive capacity to remove atmospheric carbon dioxide and store it in soils and biomass.The challenge is to understand the extent to which sustainable land management can be a valuable solution to increase the mitigation potential of the land sector, particularly at small-scale rural landscape level. A land-based approach is developed and tested for application at small-scale rural landscape level, aiming at reducing and offsetting GHG emissions from the livestock activities, one of the main sources of GHG emissions of the whole agricultural sector. The proposed land-based approach builds on an ensemble of methodologies, including Geographic Information System (GIS) elaboration, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and methodologies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that allow estimating livestock GHG emissions and the mitigation potential of sustainable land-use options applied in the same small-scale rural landscape (e.g. improvement of ruminants’ diet, biogas from manure, reduction of synthetic fertilizers, minimum/no-tillage, natural herbaceous cover, reuse of agricultural residues, new orchards and forests on marginal lands).Results from a case study in Italy show that land-based mitigation options applied at small-scale rural landscape level can reduce and completely offset the GHG livestock emissions of the same area, leading to carbon neutral livestock systems, in line with the objectives of the EU Green Deal and the global climate commitments. Thus, this study confirms that the land sector can strongly contribute to climate change mitigation if sustainable land-use options are applied. Moreover, when sustainable land-use options are applied with a proximity approach in a small-scale, the results are not limited to the carbon neutrality of the livestock production but involve also other tangible environmental and socio-economic benefits in the territory (e.g. sustainable agriculture, biodiversity protection, water and air quality, new green areas, tourism, well-being etc.). A such sustainable land-based approach can be applied to all food systems (not only livestock) and can be scaled at global level involving an infinite number of districts (organized at local, regional or national level) with the potential to influence globally the food production toward a sustainable model of the whole land sector. The implementation of a such sustainable land management aiming to a carbon neutral food production can be supported at public policies level, under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Carbon Farming schemes, but also by the private sector in the framework of voluntary carbon mechanisms.

In this chapter a comprehensive assessment of the greenhouse gases budget of the Italian terrestrial ecosystems is provided, with particular attention to forest, cropland and grassland ecosystems and some case studies focusing on Italian shrublands and lands naturally or artificially converted to forests. Different methods have been applied and compared, such as regional measurements, use of flux networks and data-driven models within specific sectoral approaches in order to characterize the greenhouse gases budget of terrestrial ecosystems. The results presented respond also to the growing interest of the recent years in the role of the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems and its relevance for national policies on mitigation and adaptation to climate changes.