Exploring the economic trade-offs of carbon farming practices: A systematic literature review

The paper provides a systematic literature review in order to investigate the economic dimensions related to the adoption of carbon farming practices, with the aim of assessing their economic sustainability in the medium to long term and thus identifying the main barriers and economic-political levers that influence their diffusion. The analysis, based on the PRISMA protocol, includes 46 studies selected from international scientific databases and reveals substantial heterogeneity in the economic performance of adopted practices, influenced by structural, agronomic and institutional factors. The main areas analysed include: implementation and management costs, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis, profitability and impact of policy measures. Evidence shows that low-input practices generally have a favourable cost-effectiveness ratio. In contrast, structural or capital-intensive practices are only economically viable in the presence of appropriate incentives or well structured carbon markets. Furthermore, the paper emphasises the importance of public policies in bridging the gap between environmental benefits and economic returns, highlighting the effectiveness of performance-based schemes over those based on lump-sum payments per activity. The results contribute to the scientific debate on the agro-ecological transition, offering theoretical, managerial and policy implications for the definition of effective economic instruments for the transition towards climate-smart and low emission agricultural systems.