A Crucial Climate Mystery Hides Just Beneath Your Feet

Author: Nathanael Johnson | Published: April 4, 2017

What Jonathan Sanderman really wanted was some old dirt. He called everyone he could think of who might know where he could get some. He emailed colleagues and read through old studies looking for clues, but he kept coming up empty.

Sanderman was looking for old dirt because it would let him test a plan to save the world. Soil scientists had been talking about this idea for decades: Farmers could turn their fields into giant greenhouse gas sponges, potentially offsetting as much as 15 percent of global fossil fuel emissions a year, simply by coaxing crops to suck more CO2 out of the air.

There was one big problem with this idea: It could backfire. When plants absorb CO2 they either turn it into food or stash it in the ground. The risk is that if you treat farms as carbon banks, it could lead to smaller harvests, which would spur farmers to plow more land and pump more carbon into the air than before.

Back in 2011, when Sanderman was working as a soil scientist in Australia (he’s now at Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts), he’d figured out a way to test if it was possible to produce bumper crops on a piece of land while also banking carbon in it. But first, he needed to get his hands on that really old dirt.

Specifically, he needed to find a farm that kept decades of soil samples and precise records of its yields. That way he could compare the amount of carbon in the soil with the harvest and see if storing carbon kneecapped production.

Sanderman’s office was in the southern city of Adelaide, directly across the street from the Waite Agricultural Research Institute. The researchers there supposedly had the soil and records that Sanderman needed, dating back to 1925. But no one had any idea where to find the dirt. After numerous dead ends, a chain of clues led Sanderman into the basement of a big research building down the road, covered in greenhouses.

The basement was a big, dimly lit room full of floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with boxes in various stages of disarray. He walked the rows slowly, scanning up and down until they were in front of his nose: scores of gallon jars made of thick, leaded glass with yellowing labels. “Like something you’d find in a second-hand store and put on your shelf,” Sanderman says.

He felt a rush of excitement. Then he squinted at the labels. There were no dates or locations. Instead, each bore a single series of numbers. It was a code, and Sanderman had no clue how to crack it.

The question that Sanderman wanted to answer was laid out by the Canadian soil scientist Henry Janzen. In 2006, Janzen published a paper, “The soil carbon dilemma: Shall we hoard it or use it?” Janzen pointed out that since the dawn of agriculture, farmers have been breeding crops that suck carbon out of the air and put it on our plates, rather than leaving it behind in the soil.

“Grain is 45 percent carbon by weight,” Janzen told me. “So when you truck away a load of grain, you are exporting carbon which, in a natural system, would have mostly returned to the soil.”

Janzen has the rare ability to explain complicated things with such clarity that, when talking to him, you may catch yourself struck with wonder at an utterly new glimpse of how the world works. Plants, he explained, perform a kind of alchemy. They combine air, water, and the sun’s fire to make food. And this alchemical combination that we call food is, in fact, a battery—a molecular trap for the sun’s energy made of broken-down CO2 and H2O (you know, air and water).

Sugars are the simplest batteries. And sugars are also the building blocks for fat and fiber, which are just bigger, more complicated batteries. Ferns, trees, and reeds are the sum of those parts. Bury these batteries for thousands of years under conditions of immense heat and pressure, and they transform again—still carrying the sun’s energy—into coal, oil, and gas.

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New Technologies Offer Hope in Creating a More Transparent and Sustainable Food System

Author: Dr. Mercola | Published: April 2017 

Modern-day food practices are reliant on a series of unsustainable methods — including fossil fuels and chemical-dependent genetically engineered (GE) organisms — that pollute Earth’s valuable resources such as our air, soil and water, as well as damage public health.

Our current food system, heavily treated with crop chemicals, is linked to myriad health problems including food allergies, gluten intolerance, gut and neurological dysfunction, immunodeficiency disorders and more.

Making healthy food choices is incredibly important, but can be a daunting task due to the extreme disconnect many of us have with the food we eat, as illustrated in the featured documentary “Digital Food.”

‘Food has Become a Black Box’

Food journalist Michael Pollan, who’s authored many books and articles explaining how nature and culture intersect on our plates and in our farms and gardens,1 says not knowing where our food comes from creates a vicious cycle of unhealthy choices that results in sickness and disease not only for humans, but our planet too.

“Food has become a black box,” says Pollan. “When you’re buying a pound of hamburger, you know very little. You don’t even know what kind of animal it is.”

Most of the time, consumers have little to no details about the food they eat, including how the animal lived, where it came from, what it ate or how long ago it was slaughtered, says Pollan, who through his many thought-provoking books has educated millions about the downfalls of our current food system.

“It’s always been my conviction that the more people know about how their food is produced, the better choices they will make,” says Pollan.

“That can be very disruptive to the food industry,” he adds while being interviewed in the featured film, which explores the potential new technologies have in bringing transparency to our food system.

Two Children in Every US Classroom Have Food Allergies

About 90 percent of the money Americans spend on food goes to buy processed food. What’s worse, new research shows that, astonishingly, more than half — nearly 60 percent, in fact — of the food Americans eat is ULTRA-processed meaning the food could be purchased at a gas station.

The implications of this, in terms of public health, stretch far and wide. Researchers estimate that about 15 million Americans now have food allergies.2

This condition, which can be deadly, affects 1 in every 13 children in the U.S. or two in every classroom, resulting in an economic burden of roughly $25 billion per year, according to Food Allergy Research & Education.3

Food allergies among children increased about 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, according to a 2013 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.4

This steep increase in food-related illness has caused consumers to lose faith in the food system and, as a result, to grow very fearful, says Julian Baggini, author of “The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think.”

“They’re worried about being poisoned and about their health,” says Baggini in the film, adding that there’s this interesting tension between the desire for cheap and plentiful food and at the same time, also a desire for clean, healthy food that’s produced sustainably.

Silicon Valley Sets Its Eyes on Food Technology

In an attempt to help consumers regain their trust in food, companies such as San Francisco-based Nima Labs, featured in the documentary, are working to develop new technologies that allow consumers to avoid foods or key ingredients such as gluten that may trigger an allergic reaction.

Shireen Yates and Scott Sundvor, both of whom suffered food allergies and sensitivities for years, founded Nima Labs in 2013. Tired of wondering whether a food was safe to eat, Yates and Sundvor created a portable device that allows consumers to test liquid and solid foods for gluten in about two minutes.5

The Nima Starter Kit, costing around $300, allows users to insert a tiny sample of food into a capsule that uses chemical measurements to determine if there is 20 parts per million (ppm) or more of gluten in your food sample.

“The sensor combines an electronic sensor with antibody-based detection in a disposable capsule. This process turns a complicated eight-step laboratory food testing process into an easy three steps,” according to the company’s website.6

“Nima also syncs to an app that will record test results and restaurant reviews for future reference and community sharing.”

Please note that this is merely a review of technology featured in the documentary, and I have not investigated its validity.

The device is one of many new technologies aimed at empowering consumers to make healthier and more confident food choices. Other emerging technologies include devices that measure anything from calories to pesticides to antibiotics, notes the film.

The Preference for Health Food Isn’t Just a Trend; It’s a Lifestyle

More than ever before, consumers have a heightened awareness regarding the food they eat, as well as an increased preference for organics and grass fed beef and dairy.

In the U.S., the organic sector grew 11.5 percent in 2016, while grass fed increased about 50 percent. As a result, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the amount of GE crops grown around the world has decreased in terms of acreage.

This preference for health food isn’t just a trend; it’s a lifestyle — and for good reason.  Studies suggest that organic fruits and vegetables may contain as much as 18 percent to 69 percent more antioxidants than pesticide-treated produce.

As antioxidants play a critical role in the prevention of diseases and illnesses, these higher levels of nutrients, in combination with a lower toxicity level, make organically grown foods a superior choice.

One of the strongest selling points for eating organic foods had been to reduce your exposure to pesticides and insecticides. Now, a recent study demonstrates that organic foods hold more benefits for your future health and the health of your children.

The study conducted by the European Parliamentary Research Service reviewed existing research and made several determinations.7

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Monsanto Tribunal Judges Release Opinion: Monsanto Activities Violate Basic Human Rights

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 18, 2017

Contact : US : Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association/Regeneration International, 207-653-3090, katherine@organicconsumers.org; Netherlands : Tjerk Dalhuisen, +31614699126, tjerk@monsanto-tribunal.org

Monsanto Tribunal Judges Release Opinion: Monsanto Activities Violate Basic Human Rights

Better Regulations Needed to Protect Victims of Multinational Corporations

THE HAGUE, Netherlands –

Today the five international judges for the Monsanto Tribunal presented their legal opinion, which include key conclusions, both on the conduct of Monsanto and on the need for important changes to international laws governing multinational corporations.

The judges conclude that Monsanto has engaged in practices that have impinged on the basic human right to a healthy environment, the right to food and the right to health. Additionally, Monsanto’s conduct has a negative impact on the right of scientists to freely conduct indispensable research.

The judges also conclude that despite the development of regulations intended to protect the environment, a gap remains between commitments and the reality of environmental protection. International law should now precisely and clearly assert the protection of the environment and establish the crime of ecocide. The Tribunal concludes that if ecocide were formally recognized as a crime in international criminal law, the activities of Monsanto could possibly constitute a crime of ecocide.

In the third part of the advisory opinion, the Tribunal focuses on the widening gap between international human rights law and corporate accountability. It calls for the need to assert the primacy of international human and environmental rights law. A set of legal rules is in place to protect investors’ rights in the frame of the World Trade Organization and in bilateral investment treaties and in clauses in free-trade agreements. These provisions tend to undermine the capacity of nations to maintain policies, laws and practices protecting human and environmental rights. United Nations bodies urgently need to take action; otherwise key questions of human and environmental rights violations will be resolved by private tribunals operating entirely outside the United Nations framework.

The Tribunal also urges to hold non-state actors responsible within international human rights law. The Tribunal reiterates that multinational enterprises should be recognized as responsible actors and should be subjected to the International Criminal Court jurisdiction in case of infringement of fundamental rights. The Tribunal clearly identifies and denounces a severe disparity between the rights of multinational corporations and their obligations. Therefore, the advisory opinion encourages authoritative bodies to protect the effectiveness of international human rights and environmental law against the conduct of multinational corporations.

The very clear conclusions will be of interest to both the critics of Monsanto and industrial agriculture and to the shareholders of chemical companies and especially Bayer. The reputation of Monsanto—and Bayer in case of a merger—will not exactly improve with these conclusions by the judges of the Tribunal. The advisory opinion is a strong signal to those involved in international law, but also to the victims of toxic chemicals. The Tribunal has created links and shared important information between lawyers and organisations that represent the victims. Therefore it is likely that the conclusions will lead to more liability cases against Monsanto and similar companies. This will shine a light on the true cost of production and will affect Monsanto (Bayer) shareholder value in the long run. Companies that cause damage to health, food and healthy environment should and will be held accountable for their actions.

Organizing groups behind the Monsanto Tribunal include the Organic Consumers Association, Navdanya, IFOAM Organics International, the Biovision Foundation and Regeneration International.

Monsanto Tribunal Judges Opinion (summary plus full document) www.monsanto-tribunal.org/conclusions

Regeneration International, a project of the Organic Consumers Association, is building a global network of farmers, scientists, businesses, activists, educators, journalists, governments and consumers who will promote and put into practice regenerative agriculture and land-use practices that: provide abundant, nutritious food; revive local economies; rebuild soil fertility and biodiversity; and restore climate stability by returning carbon to the soil, through the natural process of photosynthesis. Visit www.organicconsumers.org and regenerationinternational.org

The Monsanto Tribunal is an international civil society initiative to hold Monsanto accountable for human rights violations, for crimes against humanity, and for ecocide. Eminent judges heard testimonies from victims, and will deliver a legal opinion following procedures of the International Court of Justice. A distinct and parallel event, the People’s Assembly, was a gathering of social movements from all over the world that exchanged ideas and planned for the future we want. The Tribunal and People’s Assembly took place between 14 and 16 October 2016 in The Hague, Netherlands. The legal opinion will be delivered on April 18th 2017 and livestreamed on this page. Visit www.monsanto-tribunal.org

Local Farmers Sowing Seeds of Carbon Farming

Author: Stephanie Hiller | Published: April 5, 2017 

This year, the third warmest in recorded history, spring has come a month early, with regions all across the United States experiencing May temperatures in March. While warmer temperatures are welcome after a cold, wet winter, the cause is not.

Oceans are warming and rising, and last year was the fourth consecutive year of mass seal pup strandings along local beaches due to reduced populations of anchovies and sardines. Glaciers are melting and collapsing at record rates. Heat waves and fires are likely to threaten our placid summers. Worse disasters loom in our children’s future.

Despite what the Trump administration says, climate change is here. As Naomi Klein pointed out in a 2011 article in The Nation, climate deniers know its consequences full-well: Addressing climate change means not only ending the flow of their black gold—it’s the end of their entire way of life.

“To lower global emissions,” she writes, “can only be done by radically reordering our economic and political systems in many ways antithetical to their ‘free market belief system.’” Hence, oil companies have invested billions to convince much of the voting public that climate change is a hoax and accomplished the ultimate coup d’état with the installation of a like-minded government that will raise the temperature, and the consequences, even more.

But we still have a chance to pull back from our race to the edge. There is a climate-change solution that can take root at the local level which can actually reverse climate change by at least 40 percent. By changing the way we grow food, we can actually draw down carbon from the atmosphere and put it to good use where it belongs: In the soil. Call it carbon farming.

Healthy Soils

North Bay farmers have led the way with these techniques, and with the help of climate-advocacy groups, they won state support to promote a program that just might save the world.

The California Healthy Soils Initiative (CHSI), launched on January 11 in Sacramento by the National Resource Conservation Service and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, encourages farmers to adopt carbon-friendly farming methods by offering grants and training assistance. Grant applications will be accepted later this spring.

Judging from the number of people who turned out for the September “Building Partnerships on Healthy Soil” summit—more than 200 for the conference itself and many more via webcast—interest in this carbon-friendly “regenerative” soil-management program is growing. It can’t come too soon: The very existence of topsoil is at risk.

The World Wildlife Fund reports that more than half of the topsoil worldwide has been lost over the past 150 years, mostly due to industrial agriculture. Some sources say that the loss is more like 70 percent. It’s possible that in 60 years, the topsoil on heavily grazed and monocropped farmlands will be gone, leaving nothing but an impervious layer of hardpan in its place, conditions that led to the Dust Bowl phenomenon in parts of the United States and Canada in the 1930s. Without its thin skin of topsoil, fertile land turns to desert, a process that has been accelerating all over the world in large part because of intensive industrial agriculture.

But David Runsten, policy director of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), says that agriculture can be part of the solution. He began working with the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN), a nonprofit that advocates for climate-friendly agricultural policy, in 2009 to get state officials to embrace carbon farming.

“Finally, the governor said he would support Healthy Soils,” Runsten says.

The legislation passed last summer and allocates $7.5 million for the program, $3 million for demonstration projects and up to $4 million in grants of up to $25,000. Governor Brown is sold on the program. He originally asked for $20 million once he embraced the idea.

Funding for the program comes from the California Air Resources Board’s Cap-and-Trade Program.

California’s Cap-and-Trade Program generates money from big emitters who are required to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases, says Renata Brillinger, executive director of CalCAN.

“The Legislature and the governor decide how much [of that] money to spend and on what,” Brillinger says. “It’s billions of dollars that we can influence through a democratic process.”

Healthy Soils projects must be directly linked to climate change, she says. “Farmers are getting money to do things on their farm that draws down carbon or reduces emissions. It is the only source of funding in the United States that will pay farmers to do that.”

One of the pioneers of carbon farming is the Marin Carbon Project (MCP). The nonprofit took it upon itself to provide scientific evidence to substantiate the benefits of carbon farming. Working in concert with Whendee Silver, professor of environmental science, policy, and management at U.C. Berkeley, the MCP found that adding a half-inch of compost to the soil increased soil carbon by one ton, or 40 percent, per hectare.

Most dazzling was the discovery that the amount continued to increase by the same rate year after year without adding more compost. This research demonstrated that carbon farming “can improve on-farm productivity and viability, enhance ecosystem functions and stop and reverse climate change,” explains Torri Estrada, executive director of the Carbon Cycle Institute, a Petaluma-based organization partnered with the MCP.

The Carbon Cycle

Plants sequester carbon from atmospheric CO2 by photosynthesis, using the airborne carbon to create carbohydrates and relaying the excess sugars to microbes in the soil. In turn, microbes return carbon to the soil. The more microbes, the more carbon is taken up, the stronger the roots and the more productive and resilient the plant. Adding organic matter to the soil feeds the fungi and bacteria, and enhances the effect.

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Putting A Dollar Value On Ecosystems

Author: Mark Brodie | Published: April 15, 2017 

How do you put a dollar value on something that in some ways is priceless? Like the Mona Lisa? Or biodiversity?

Researchers in a new paper try to do just that — with one specific ecosystem service, provided by grasslands: soil carbon storage.

Bruce Hungate is the director of the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society at Northern Arizona University and lead author of a paper on the economic value of soil carbon storage. The paper was published in “Science Advances.” Mark Brodie from KJZZ interviewed researcher Bruce Hungate to learn more about how the study put a dollar value on soil carbon storage.

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How Soil Microbes and Intercellular Communication Affect Human Health

Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola | Published on: April 9, 2017

Your health is in large part determined by the health of the soil in which your food is grown. In this interview, Dr. Zach Bush delves into the many reasons why this is so.

Bush, who is triple board-certified in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism, and hospice and palliative care has done some fascinating and innovative research in this area and is one of the brightest physicians I have ever met.

He began his career as a conventional cancer researcher funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

When his funding dried up following the 2008-2010 recession, Bush transitioned into nutrition, eventually coming to understand how chronic inflammation and loss of intercellular communication is at the core of all disease, and why so many of our foods have lost their medicinal value.

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Healthy Soil Is the Real Key to Feeding the World

Author: David R. Montgomery | Published: April 3, 2017 

One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the world using fewer agrochemicals.

When I embarked on a six-month trip to visit farms around the world to research my forthcoming book, “Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life,” the innovative farmers I met showed me that regenerative farming practices can restore the world’s agricultural soils. In both the developed and developing worlds, these farmers rapidly rebuilt the fertility of their degraded soil, which then allowed them to maintain high yields using far less fertilizer and fewer pesticides.

Their experiences, and the results that I saw on their farms in North and South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ghana and Costa Rica, offer compelling evidence that the key to sustaining highly productive agriculture lies in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil. This journey also led me to question three pillars of conventional wisdom about today’s industrialized agrochemical agriculture: that it feeds the world, is a more efficient way to produce food and will be necessary to feed the future.

Myth 1: Large-scale agriculture feeds the world today

According to a recent U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, family farms produce over three-quarters of the world’s food. The FAO also estimates that almost three-quarters of all farms worldwide are smaller than one hectare – about 2.5 acres, or the size of a typical city block.

Of course the world needs commercial agriculture, unless we all want to live on and work our own farms. But are large industrial farms really the best, let alone the only, way forward? This question leads us to a second myth.Only about 1 percent of Americans are farmers today. Yet most of the world’s farmers work the land to feed themselves and their families. So while conventional industrialized agriculture feeds the developed world, most of the world’s farmers work small family farms. A 2016 Environmental Working Group report found that almost 90 percent of U.S. agricultural exports went to developed countries with few hungry people.

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Reconsider the Impact of Trees On Water Cycles and Climate, Scientists Ask

Published: March 20, 2016 

Forests and trees play a major role on water cycles and cooler temperatures, contributing to food security and climate change adaptation. In recent decades, the climate change discourse has looked at forests and trees mostly as carbon stocks and carbon sinks, but now scientists are calling for more attention on the relation between trees and water in climate change.

Scientists suggest that the global conversation on trees, forests and climate needs to be turned on its head: the direct effects of trees on climate through rainfall and cooling may be more important than their well-studied capacity of storing carbon. A new publication and a symposium try to shed new light on the debate.

The research paper Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world compiles older knowledge and new research findings pointing at the important effects of trees on helping to retain water on the ground and to produce cooling moisture, which in turn have a positive impact on food security and climate change adaptation.

Authors are also participating in a two-day virtual symposium hosted by FTA, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. On the occasion of the International Day of Forests (March 21) and World Water Day (March 22), this virtual symposium will serve to discuss the findings of the paper and to new areas of research about the linkages of forests with water and climate.

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Did People Suffer For Your Cotton Shirt? DNA Tagging Lets You Track Its Origins

Author: Elizabeth Segran | Published on: March 22, 2017

Cotton is a dirty crop, often tinged with human suffering.

Consider the farmers in India, the world’s largest producer of cotton. There, the crop is generally harvested on small farms, where families go into debt to buy seeds from Monsanto, a seed supplier that dominates 90% of the Indian market. As I’ve reported before, it only takes one bad year for a family to lose everything. This has led to an epidemic in suicides, with an estimated 300,000 farmers taking their own lives over the past two decades in order to spare their children the consequences of this debt.

Given devastating figures like these, many consumers understandably want to know more about the origins of the cotton they buy. A solution to that problem is not as far away as you think: Pimacott, the American division of the Indian cotton supplier Himatsingka, has been working on a technology that uses DNA tagging to allow you pinpoint exactly where your cotton comes from. As its name suggests, Pimacott only develops pima, a variety of cotton that is grown largely in the San Joaquin Valley in California and in particular regions of Peru. Because the company focuses on high-end cotton, it needed a way to assure customers that they were getting authentic and unadulterated pima, especially because raw pima might be brought overseas to be woven and turned into products.

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Runoff Reduced, Water Retention Increased by Multi-paddock Grazing

Author: Kay Ledbetter | Published: March 9, 2017 

Adaptive multi-paddock grazing has been found to be an effective conservation practice on grazing lands for enhancing water conservation and protecting water quality, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Research study at Vernon.

The research results were summarized in the article “Evaluating the ranch and watershed scale impacts of using traditional and adaptive multi-paddock grazing on runoff, sediment and nutrient losses in North Texas, USA,” published recently in the Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal The full journal article can be found at https://bit.ly/2mCiqdl.

Conducting the AgriLife Research study funded by the Dixon Water Foundation were Dr. Srinivasulu Ale, a geospatial hydrology associate professor; Dr. Richard Teague, rangeland ecology and management scientist, both in Vernon; Dr. Jaehak Jeong, associate professor at Temple; and Dr. Jong-Yoon Park, a postdoctoral researcher at Vernon who is now with the Korea Environment Institute.

The Agricultural Policy/Environmental Extender, or APEX, model was used to evaluate the influence of continuous and multi-paddock, grazing practices on runoff, sediment and nutrient losses at both the ranch- and watershed-scales, Ale said.

“We found grazing management practices do have a significant influence on ecosystem services provided by rangelands,” he said. “Not only did the multi-paddock grazing practice provide several hydrological benefits such as increased soil infiltration, increased water conservation and decreased surface runoff, but also environmental benefits such as water quality improvement.”

Teague said this study was designed to help producers by assessing the hydrologic and water quality impacts of traditional and alternate grazing management practices and identifying best management practices for long-term sustainability of rangelands.

The study quantified runoff, sediment and nutrient losses under traditional continuous and adaptive multi-paddock grazing management practices in the rangeland-dominated Clear Creek Watershed in North Texas, he said.

The APEX model was initially evaluated at the ranch-scale using observed herbaceous plant biomass and daily soil moisture data at four study ranches – two under multi-paddock grazing and one each under light continuous and heavy continuous grazing practices and the model output was consistent with field data, Teague said.

The model was further evaluated using monthly streamflow, sediment, total nitrogen and total phosphorus data measured at the watershed outlet, Ale said. Both ranch- and watershed-scale results indicated a strong influence of the grazing practice on runoff and water quality.

When the grazing management was changed from the baseline multi-paddock to heavy continuous grazing at one of the study ranches, he said the simulated average annual surface runoff, sediment, total nitrogen and total phosphorus losses from 1980-2013 increased by 148 percent, 142 percent, 144 percent and 158 percent, respectively.

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