Soil: The Secret Weapon in the Fight Against Climate Change
Agriculture is on the front lines of climate change. Whether it’s the seven-year drought drying up fields in California, the devastating Midwest flooding in 2019, or hurricane after hurricane hitting the Eastern Shore, agriculture and rural communities are already feeling the effects of a changing climate. Scientists expect climate change to make these extreme weather events both more frequent and more intense in coming years.
Agriculture is also an important—in fact a necessary—partner in fighting climate change. The science is clear: We cannot stay beneath the most dangerous climate thresholds without sequestering a significant amount of carbon in our soils.
Agricultural soils have the potential to sequester, relatively inexpensively, 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gasses annually—equivalent to the annual emissions of 64 coal fired power plants, according to National Academy of Sciences.
But we can’t get there without engaging farmers, turning a source of emissions into a carbon sink.