Course

Grounding Carbon Farming

Organised by	WIMEK graduate school in collaboration with Soil biology and Environmental policy groups (Wageningen University)
Date	Sat 13 September 2025 until Fri 19 September 2025
Duration	5 full days during a week on site on a farm in Dampierre-en-Bray, Normandy, France. Arrival night of the 13th, departure in the morning on the 19th.

Looking from the bottom-up, on the farm, with the farmers and their choices… this was truly inspiring

I was kind of wishy-washy about it, but I feel really empowered to have my own opinion about carbon farming now

Thanks for the course. It was magnificent

Grounding grant

Interested in the course but lacking financial support? Check our grounding grant opportunity below to fully cover your participation in the course.

Scope

As the climate changes, the environment degrades, biodiversity declines and the world population increases, agricultural ecosystems are increasingly looked at, both as culprit and saviours. Agroecosystems and their soils are indeed key to support a multitude of ecosystem services, but their degradation worldwide jeopardises this ability.

Carbon farming is proposed as a solution. Carbon farming designates any agricultural management practice resulting in carbon sequestration in soils or vegetation, and the business model should allow farming to get paid for each ton of carbon sequestered. It is claimed that carbon sequestration, particularly in soils, has the double benefit of supporting climate mitigation (as carbon is drawn down from the atmosphere and “locked away”) and the multitude of ecosystem services provided by soils (as carbon is the backbone of organic matter and central to soil health and fertility).

One approach – soil carbon sequestration - to solve the climate crisis and revert environmental degradation caused by agriculture while feeding a growing world population… is that too good to be true?

Registration

Course Registration Form

Grounding Grant Application

Immersive

During the whole week, you are hosted at the grand gite de Hyaumet, a magnificent renovated old farm in the middle of the French country side, just down the road from the main hosting farm (see transdisciplinary section). The course fee includes accommodation as well as coffee, tea, snacks and all meals for 5 days, with dinner on the day of arrival and breakfast on the day of departure. Note that, we are able to provide vegetarian and vegan meals, but are unfortunately not able to cater for strict allergy related diets. Note that you will need to share a room and facilities with other people; we cannot offer single rooms. Also note that the accommodation house is an old farm renovated in a traditional style. Comfort is decent but basic.

Transdisciplinary

In this course, we go onsite, in two dairy farms (more info here and here) where many of the recommended practices are implemented. After in depth lectures on aspects from the fundamentals of carbon cycling, multifunctionality, sustainability to economic and political aspects of emission trading and agricultural subsidies, we discuss with soil and social scientists, legislators, carbon certifiers. We also talk to the farmers, we eat their food, we walk their fields. Using a transdisciplinary and immersive approach, we seek to see, to witness, experience, and truly understand, from different angles: what is carbon farming and is it really sustainable, socially, economically and environmentally?

Activities

The course is composed of a series of lectures, discussions, stakeholder debates, serious games, group reflections working toward a final assignment (a presentation pitching a scientifically and socially grounded and relevant farm sustainability policy), farm visits, farmers interviews and field measurements. We also taste some of the wonderful food and drinks produced locally, including by the farmers taking an active part in the course. Because it should also be fun, farmers, teachers and stakeholders join for social events and the welcome dinner. The course will start on Saturday in the late afternoon (4-5 PM) with welcome drinks and dinner. Course activities terminate with a goodbye dinner on Thursday night and departure from the site is on Friday after breakfast (10am).

Grounding grant

This grant is an opportunity to fully support participation from PhD students with unfavourable financial situations. The fee for this course is as low as possible: the course runs at cost, excluding time from the teachers which is covered by their universities or companies. Still, accommodation, food, transport and logistics for an immersive one-week course is unaffordable to many PhD candidates. This is problematic, because climate change and farming concern us all, and because social equity is at the heart of sustainability. So, we have created the Grounding Grant, to offer two PhD students with less favourable financial situations the opportunity to take part in the course for free.

There are four eligibility criteria:

- Being proficient in English
- Being highly motivated
- Being currently enrolled in a PhD programme
- Being unable to finance participation to the course

To apply to the Grounding Grant, you must submit:

- a motivation letter (2 pages max.) explaining your motivation in taking part to this course, explaining how it aligns with your current and future professional plans

- a letter from your supervisor (signed by them and a university official) certifying that the finances of your PhD project do not allow participation in the course

You can apply and upload the two documents by going here (or by using the button under "Registration" above). All eligible applications will be assessed purely based on motivation and the envisioned contribution of the course to the candidate’s career path.

Note that you don’t need to register for the course if you apply for the grounding grant.

Teachers

Gabriel Moinet: Soil Biology group Wageningen University

Alix Vidal: Soil Biology group Wageningen University

Ina Möller: Environmental Policy group Wageningen University

Claire Chenu: French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment

Roman Hüppi: myclimate NGO (https://www.myclimate.org/en/)

Laurent and Matthias Moinet: La ferme de Hyaumet

Gilles Colombet-Gourdon: La ferme du domaine de Merval

Learning goals

After the course students should be able to:

1. Appraise the role of soils, and particularly soil carbon, in climate change mitigation, adaptation and farm sustainability

2. Evaluate some of the environmental, social and economic implications of soil carbon sequestration in the farming context

3. Understand and relate to the perspective of different stakeholders, including farmers, on sustainability transition and the role of soil carbon in it

4. Critically assess soil carbon related policies and propose alternatives considering farming context

Miscellaneous Information

Selection of participants

A maximum of 16 participant can take part in the course. We ask applicants to upload a motivation letter describing their personal and professional motivations to attend the course. Specifically, we ask you to answer how the course relates to your research or professional activity and to your personal background.

Registration will open the 20^th of March 2025 and early bird registration will end on the 19^th of May. Applications will close on July 16^th. All applications submitted before this date will be considered based on the motivation letter, while keeping in mind the need to create a diverse, but knowledgeable group in terms of scientific and regional background. Applicants are notified at the latest on July 7^th about participation.

Assumed Knowledge

None, but some background knowledge in soil science, agronomy, or socio-economics of farming is preferable.

Additional Information

Credit points	2 ECTS
Language	English, being able to speak (some) French is an advantage but not necessary
Group size	12-16 people

How to get there?

The fee does not include the travel from Wageningen to the venue and back; you need to organise and fund this yourself (to the exception of the grounding grant holders). For those travelling with public transport we will provide a pick-up from Beauvais train station. Make sure you have travel insurance for the duration of your trip and are insured during the course.

Fee

Role	Early (before 19 May 2025)	Regular (until 1 June 2025)
WUR PhDs with TSP	475	525
SENSE PhDs , WIMEK postdoc's and WIMEK staff	950	1000
Other PhDs	1030	1080
All other academic staff	1030	1080
Others/non-academic	1900	1950

Solidarity fee: Name your price at registration and help us raise funds to support participation of students from unfavourable financial situations (See Grounding grant section); 100 euros from every participant this year fully funds one person for the next edition.

Note:

If you need an invoice to complete your payment, please send an email to wimek@wur.nl, including ALL relevant details that should be mentioned on the invoice (e.g., purchase order no., specific addresses, attendees, etc.).
The Early-Bird policy is such that the moment of REGISTRATION (and not payment) is leading for determining the fee that applies to you.
Please make sure that your payment is arranged within two weeks after your participation has been confirmed, according to the instructions stated in the confirmation email. Your registration is only completed once we have received your payment.
If we do not hear from you or receive payment within two weeks after you received the confirmation email, your spot will be offered to someone on the waiting list.
It is the participant's responsibility to make sure that they complete the payment correctly and in time.

Cancellation Conditions

Up to 10 (ten) weeks prior to the start of the course, cancellation is free of charge.
Up to 6 (six) weeks prior to the start of the course a fee of 50% will be charged.
Up to 4 (four) weeks prior to the start of the course the full fee will be charged.

Note: If you would like to cancel your registration, ALWAYS inform us.

Also note that when there are not enough participants, we can cancel the course. We will inform you if this is the case a week after the early bird deadline. Please take this into account when arranging your trip to the course (I.e. check the re-imbursement policies).