In her recent interview, Julia Kasper, co-founder and CEO of Zukunftmoor, argues that rewetting drained peatlands represents the single biggest climate opportunity in agriculture today. Although peatlands cover only about 3 % of the global land surface, they store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined. When peatlands are drained, a common practice for agriculture, they don’t just release CO₂ once; they leak carbon continuously, year after year. Restoring peatlands thus stops that “constant leak,” and rewetting them can turn a major source of emissions into a long-term carbon sink.
But rewetting alone is not enough: farmers need viable, sustainable livelihoods. That’s where Zukunftmoor’s innovative approach comes in. They propose combining rewetting with cultivation of Sphagnum moss — a natural plant of peatlands — which can serve as a sustainable substitute for extracted peat in horticultural substrates. This turns rewetting from a purely ecological restoration act into a market-driven, economically viable land-use model. By using drones or hand-seeding methods, and developing harvesting and substrate-supply chains, the approach offers farmers a low-input, long-term pathway to maintain income while restoring degraded peatlands.
With this combination of climate mitigation and practical agriculture, Kasper’s vision offers peatland regions across Europe a concrete alternative to drainage-based farming — one that aligns environmental restoration with economic viability.
Original article published on Investing in Regenerative Agriculture.
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