Configuring the carbon farmer Emerging practices of carbon accounting and biochar engagements in Danish agriculture
Inge-Merete Hougaard contributes a chapter to the volume The Cultural Complexity of Carbon, titled “Configuring the Carbon Farmer”. The chapter explores how Danish farmers are being reimagined as key actors in climate mitigation through their engagement with biochar, a carbon-rich material produced from biomass and framed as a tool for carbon dioxide removal (CDR).
Through interviews, fieldwork and policy analysis, Hougaard examines the emergence of “carbon farmers” in Denmark—agricultural producers positioned not only as emitters required to reduce their climate footprint, but also as potential carbon removal providers subject to new regimes of measurement, certification, and accountability. The chapter traces how farmers are both imagined and configured as users of biochar by researchers, policymakers, and pyrolysis entrepreneurs, while simultaneously navigating practical, economic, and political challenges on the ground.
Highlighting tensions between technological promises and on-farm realities, the chapter offers a critical perspective on carbon accounting and the social reconfigurations required for biochar to function as a climate solution. It contributes to broader discussions within anthropology on environmental governance, climate policy, and emerging carbon economies.
The chapter is available through Taylor & Francis Group at Configuring the Carbon Farmer.
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