"Anyone visiting farmer Henning Voigt's operation near Germany's Baltic Sea coast stands a good chance of getting their feet wet. About 25 years ago, his father began rewetting a once-drained peatland. "We've been an organic farm since 1996 and currently manage 350 hectares (864 acres) of grassland. Most of it is very wet," Voigt says. Speaking with DW, Voigt explains that the hay they harvest from these wet fields is burned in a power plant to produce district heating."
"For centuries, peatlands in the country were drained, leaving only about 2% of the original area in a near-natural state today. "Germany is one of the countries that has drained peatlands the most extensively," says Franziska Tanneberger from the Greifswald Moor Center in Germany. That's a serious problem. Although former peat soils make up just 7% of Germany's agricultural land, they account for almost 40% of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, she told DW."
Drained peatlands emit more CO2 than global aviation, making rewetting a climate priority. Henning Voigt's family rewetted a peatland 25 years ago and now manages 350 hectares of very wet organic grassland. Hay from these fields is burned for district heating because peatland plants have low nutritional value, limiting cattle farming. Germany drained most of its peatlands historically, leaving about 2% near-natural and former peat soils cover 7% of agricultural land but produce nearly 40% of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Peatlands store roughly one-third of global soil carbon, about twice the carbon held in all forests combined.
Read at www.dw.com
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