Huge Carbon Sink in Soil Minerals: New Avenue for Offsetting Rising Greenhouse Gases

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Author: Marc Kramer | Published: November 8, 2017

A Washington State University researcher has discovered that vast amounts of carbon can be stored by soil minerals more than a foot below the surface. The finding could help offset the rising greenhouse-gas emissions helping warm the Earth’s climate.

Marc Kramer, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at WSU Vancouver, reports his finding in one of two related papers demonstrating how the right management practices can help trap much of the carbon dioxide that is rapidly warming the planet.

Soil holds more than three times the carbon found in the atmosphere, yet its potential in reducing atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and mitigating global warming is barely understood.

Kramer, who is a reviewer for one of three reports issued with the federal National Climate Assessment released last week, compared what we know about soil to how little we know about the deep ocean.

“Hardly anyone has been down there and they just found a new species of octopus,” he said. “We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about either oceans or soils on Earth.”

Half of global soil carbon

Writing with colleagues from Stanford, Oregon State University and elsewhere in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, Kramer said more than half of the global soil carbon pool is more than a foot beneath the surface. He also found that soil organic matter at that depth is almost entirely associated with minerals.

Kramer elaborates on the connection this week in the journal Biogeochemistry Letters. His study, which he led with colleagues from Oregon State University and the Stroud Water Research Center in Pennsylvania, is the first to explicitly examine the extent minerals control nitrogen and carbon deep in the soil.

Keeping carbon in the ground

The more we understand these processes, the more we can tailor farming and other practices to keep carbon in the ground and out of the atmosphere, Kramer said. Almost three-fourths of all carbon sequestered in the top three feet of the soil is affected by agriculture, grazing or forest management, Kramer and his colleagues report in the Annual Review paper.

Earlier research by Kramer found that certain farming practices can dramatically increase carbon in the soil. Writing in Nature Communications in 2015, Kramer documented how three farms converted to management-intensive grazing practices raised their carbon levels to those of native forest soils in just six years. While cultivation has decreased soil carbon levels by one-half to two-thirds, the soils he examined had a 75 percent increase in carbon.

“I would call it radical, anytime you can get that much carbon in the system that quickly,” Kramer said.

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Food Manufacturers, Farmers and Consumers Can Change Climate for Good

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It is time for the natural products industry to engage consumers in climate action and regenerative agriculture. The exciting thing is that the market is ready for us to lead, our recent research shows.

Author: Eric Pierce | Published: November 8, 2017

No longer is consumption a passive acquisition of stuff. Increasingly consumers consider buying something as an act that impacts others, one that requires ethical decision making.

They are willing to pay more for responsible business practices.

They are willing to pay more for responsibly produced food.

They are willing to support brands that practice environmental responsibility.

If the baby boomer generation represents the dominant perspective of yesterday and the millennial generation represents where the market is headed, we begin to see a trend line appearing across generations that suggests that consumers increasingly weigh higher order values as they make purchasing decisions.

A recent study conducted by the New Hope Network among 1,000 consumers carefully drawn to be representative of the U.S. population reveals this pattern.

Social and environmental issues resonate and are of growing importance to consumers. We found that consumers are increasingly willing to pay more to support brands that demonstrate environmentally and socially responsible business practices. While activists among the boomer and Gen X generations may have created the momentum behind social and environmental issues, today it is the millennial consumer who is likely to drive these issues into commerce.

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UNFCCC, FAO and IFAD Outline Challenges and Opportunities for Agriculture and Forestry at COP 23

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Author: Stefan Jungcurt Ph.D. | Published: November 9, 2017

Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) are responsible for almost one quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing emissions from agriculture, food systems and forestry, therefore features high on the agenda of the Bonn Climate Conference.

A Primer on AFOLU Emissions and Mitigation Options

The UNFCCC Secretariat has issued a press release that provides a comprehensive overview of the AFOLU issue under the Paris Agreement on climate change, including links to relevant publications and analyses by other organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). The article outlines linkages between AFOLU, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and climate change, specifically SDG 2 (Zero hunger), noting accelerating momentum in the development and scaling-up of solutions. The release takes stock of progress, stating that 90% of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement include measures on agriculture, forestry and food systems. This section also covers the impact of climate change on food and agriculture, community resilience, and as driver of conflict, which threaten to reverse progress in reducing hunger.

The release then outlines the potential for beneficial change in the AFOLU sector under the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, including through: mitigating GHG emissions by reducing deforestation and forest degradation and investing in sustainable agriculture; building resilience through adaptation strategies; investing in inclusive and productive agricultural development; and managing resources more sustainably. Achieving this potential requires transformational agricultural change, the article argues.

The subsequent sections provide an overview of existing initiatives for financing and support, followed by recommendations for overcoming obstacles and barriers, including: improving governance through better sector and sub-sector policy and regulatory frameworks; enhancing data and information gathering and dissemination; scaling-up finance and using it more efficiently; building capacity to address barriers to adoption; and enhancing partnerships. [UNFCCC Press Release]

The Need for a Global Transformation Towards Sustainable Agriculture

In its own press release, FAO stresses the need for a global transformation to sustainable agriculture as strategy to increase food production while making agriculture more resilient against climate change and realizing its mitigation potential. FAO underlines its belief that hunger (SDG 2), poverty (SDG 1) and climate change (SDG 13) are best addressed together by recognizing the linkages between them and designing strategies to improve resource use efficiency, conserve and restore biodiversity, and address climate change impacts. Regarding agriculture’s mitigation potential, the release notes that: rehabilitating degraded soils can sequester up to 51 billion tons of carbon; there is potential to reduce methane emissions from livestock by 30%; and there are opportunities to reduce food loss and waste, which is responsible for 8% of total annual GHG emissions. The article also highlights FAO’s activities during COP 23, including Agriculture Day on 10 November 2017, High-level Round-tables on Climate Action and Zero Hunger on 14 November 2017, and FAO’s series of side events. [FAO Press Release]

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How Carbon Farming Can Help Solve Climate Change

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Author: David Burton | Published: November 9, 2017

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations pledged to keep the average global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to take efforts to narrow that increase to 1.5C. To meet those goals we must not only stop the increase in our greenhouse gas emissions, we must also draw large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

The simplest, most cost effective and environmentally beneficial way to do this is right under our feet. We can farm carbon by storing it in our agricultural soils.

Soils are traditionally rich in carbon. They can contain as much as five per cent carbon by weight, in the form of soil organic matter — plant and animal matter in various stages of decomposition.

But with the introduction of modern agricultural techniques, including the plow, soil organic matter content has dropped by half in many areas of the world, including parts of Canada. That carbon, once stored in the ground, is now found in the atmosphere and oceans as CO2 and is contributing to global warming.

The organic compounds found in soil are the glue that hold soil particles together and help give the soil structure. Like the walls of a building, this structure creates openings and passageways that allow the soil to conduct and store water, contain air, resist soil erosion and provide a habitat for soil organisms.

Plowing breaks apart soil aggregates and allows microorganisms to eat the soil organic compounds. In the short-term, the increased microbial activity releases nutrients, boosting crop productivity. In the long-term the loss of structure reduces the soil’s ability to hold water and resist erosion. Ultimately, crop productivity drops.

How can we make soil organic matter?

First and foremost, we need to disturb soil less. The advent of no-till and reduced tillage methods have allowed us to increase the carbon content of soils.

No-till and direct-seeding methods place the seed directly into the soil, minimizing the disturbance associated with seedbed preparation. The lack of disturbance allows the roots and crop residues from the previous crops to form soil organic matter. It reduces the degradation of the soil organic matter already present in the soil.

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How Carbon Farming Could Halt Climate Change

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Author: Laura Sayre | Published: August 10, 2017

We can’t say we weren’t warned. For years, scientists have argued that human civilization must prevent the planet’s average annual temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius—or face certain catastrophe. Once we pass that critical threshold, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, life on planet earth is going to be a lot less fun. Think droughts, floods, superstorms, food shortages, and widespread extinctions.

Now, as forest fires rage and Delaware-sized chunks break off from Antarctica, scientists have more grim news: We’re going to hit the two-degree mark by the end of this century. Even if we manage to cut carbon emissions drastically, it’s simply too late—with one big caveat. If we can find some way to suck excess greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere, we may still avert the very worst catastrophes.

What’s the best way to do this? That’s still up for debate. A Bill Gates-backed startup, for instance, is experimenting with a factory-like facility that pumps CO2 out of the air, creating carbon pellets that can be buried underground or used for fuel. But a time-honored, low-tech solution may prove to be even more viable. It’s called “carbon farming,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like: using farms not only to grow food, but also to sequester carbon safely in the soil.

In some ways, farmers make unlikely climate heroes. Agriculture is a major contributor to global climate change, since the industry drives deforestation, relies heavily on fossil fuel-powered machinery, and raises methane-emitting livestock by the billions. But farms, when they’re managed properly, can also be formidable carbon sinks.

Think back to biology class: Plants absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, releasing oxygen in exchange. As crops grow, carbon is used to build plant tissues both above and below ground—from stems and leaves to seeds and roots, even root hairs and root exudates. Sequestering more carbon by planting more trees is readily recognized as a strategy for fighting climate change. But what happens underground is just as important: Plant materials that are left to accumulate and slowly decompose in the soil contribute to the formation of soil organic matter, a way of storing carbon in the soil over long periods of time.

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A Recipe to End Hunger: Food Policies that Adapt to Climate Change

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New Online Course by UNDP, FAO and UNITAR provides tools on how countries can better prepare climate-resilient food systems

Author: Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca | Published: September 27, 2017

In our age of conspicuous consumption and excess, it frightens us to know that one out of nine people ­– or 815 million children, women and men – remain chronically undernourished.

And according to recent reports, the issue has been getting worse, with the number of undernourished people worldwide increasing from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016.

So how do we build a recipe to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030, making sure all people have access to sufficient and nutritious food year-round?

It’s not going to be easy. Climate change is altering age-old farming traditions, affecting livelihoods in local communities, and small producers who bring healthy food to our tables. It is also triggering massive droughts and floods that put our global goal of zero hunger at risk.

Even a 2°C global temperate increase will be devastating for farmers and the 2 billion extra mouths we will need to feed by 2050. The cost of corn – the backbone of much of the world’s diet – could jump by 50 percent, and crop production could decline by as much as 22 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. Droughts, floods and other large-scale climate disasters would put more lives at risk of malnutrition, starvation and uncertain futures.

As chefs who are also working with the SDG Fund as UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, we know that food is the essential ingredient of life. It nourishes young minds, builds strong bones and fuels our economies. On small farms across the globe, food and agriculture are the primary drivers of development and poverty reduction. Without more climate-resilient food systems, we risk even greater calamites and the unravelling of progress we’ve made in reducing hunger, protecting our planet and supporting developing economies to reach their full potential.

Major climate disrupters, such as the recent floods across Asia, landslides in Sierra Leone, and hurricanes across the Caribbean and the United States, take away lives, destroy productive assets and shatter entire communities. This cycle of destruction will only get worse as temperatures and sea levels rise. It also puts farming at risk, especially for poor, small-scale farmers who largely depend on rain-fed agriculture.

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How Wolfe’s Neck Farm Is Combating Climate Change

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It’s all in the dirt.

Author: Mary Pols | Published: October 29, 2017

This month, Wolfe’s Neck Farm got a new name, the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, and officially became part of an internationally trending agricultural movement that aims to fight climate change from the ground up.

Beyond some signs referring to a TransFARMation, the changes aren’t obvious. That’s because a big part of the rebranding has to do with a mission happening underfoot. Literally. This transformation is about using the soil on this centuries-old 626-acre farm on the shores of Casco Bay to combat climate change.

As to be expected with the ever-evolving world of agriculture, there’s a buzzword for the new approach: regenerative agriculture. But it’s not yet in widespread use, and Wolfe’s Neck’s executive director David Herring finds himself defining it a lot.

“I’ve had a lot of people say, ‘What is this thing about regenerative agriculture? What is that?’ ” Herring said. He smiles the smile of a man who knows that it is a select audience who wants to hear the nitty gritty of dirt. “And so our ability to explain it succinctly has been tested.”

Start with soil health. Richer soil, more dense with organic material, is the obvious path to stronger plants and better yields. That’s what compost is all about. Every farmer engaged in sustainable agriculture is already working toward this.

“These are not brand-new things,” Herring said. “None of these things are.” But there’s a growing consciousness – Herring even uses the word “revolution” – of the potential agricultural soils high in organic material have to trap more carbon, enough potential to halt or even roll back climate change.

TRAPPING CARBON

Improving soil will build a higher level of resilience; organic matter in soil absorbs and retains more water, making farms more drought and flood resistant. But the major premise behind the burgeoning regenerative agriculture movement is that improving soil health is also the ideal means to get excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and into the soil. Soil already sequesters carbon. It has potential to sequester a lot more, if it has human help to increase its capacity to hold carbon. And those humans need some help figuring out the recipe to healthier soil – meaning richer in organic material that can trap the carbon. Based on the speed at which the climate is changing, the recipe needs to be developed quickly.

Which is where Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment comes in. It will continue to be the place to go for a hayride in the fall, seashore camping in the summer or a field trip to gawk at new calves and squeal at the cuteness of baby goats. It’s also still the home of a burgeoning organic dairy program designed to train the next generation of dairy farmers, thus bolstering a struggling sector of agriculture.

But it has a new role as an observatory for how known methods of enriching soil naturally are working and – this is key, given how climate change is already affecting us – a laboratory for figuring out how to improve soils rapidly.

Agriculture has to be part of the solution, Herring said, because it is a major contributor to climate change.

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Raise Your Fork Against Climate Change!

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From China, Slow Food rallies its network of food activists in 160 countries: “Let’s change the food system and stop climate change.”

Published: September 29, 2017

“We are all involved. Climate change is not tomorrow, it’s today, and it demands the united efforts of all of humanity. Each of our choices can make a difference, because it is the sum of all our individual actions that will drive change.” In front of the 400 delegates from 90 countries gathered in China to represent the Slow Food and Terra Madre network, Carlo Petrini reaffirmed that climate change is a reality, that it does not regard some distant future but the here and now. “It is Slow Food’s duty to work on climate change: There can be no quality, no good food, without respect for the environment, for resources and for human labor.”

During the Congress’s opening session delegates and experts from the Slow Food and Terra Madre network shared their experiences:

Remi Ie, Japan. President of Slow Food Nippon.

“In Japan, 2017 was a devastating year for fishers and farmers. Our country used to be known as ‘the land of four seasons’ but this year we experienced torrential rains that devastated the island of Kyushu. In the north, fishers could not catch salmon because of changes in the ocean currents; instead, fish species typical of temperate seas are being found. And everyone noticed the abnormal changes in the cherry tree blossom.”

Francesco Sottile, Italy. Lecturer in Arboreal Cultivation and Special Arboriculture at the University of Palermo.

“Europe saw a severe drought this summer, interspersed by sudden downpours that caused hydrogeological disasters. These exceptional events have dramatic effects on agriculture, history and traditional cultures, particularly in the most vulnerable rural areas. For many years climate change has been attributed to the incessant emissions from industry, and it is only recently that there is awareness about the role that agriculture and livestock farming play. But do different agricultural models exist? We have to decide to act once and for all, each of us with our own contribution at any level. Governments will have to meet targets for containing greenhouse gas emissions globally. At the same time, each one of us is able to make their own choices and contribute individually to delivering a better world.”

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World Hunger Is Increasing Thanks to Wars and Climate Change

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Author: Leah Samberg, The Conversation | Published: October 22, 2017

Around the globe, about 815 million people — 11 percent of the world’s population — went hungry in 2016, according to the latest data from the United Nations. This was the first increase in more than 15 years.

Between 1990 and 2015, due largely to a set of sweeping initiatives by the global community, the proportion of undernourished people in the world was cut in half. In 2015, UN member countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which doubled down on this success by setting out to end hunger entirely by 2030. But a recent UN report shows that, after years of decline, hunger is on the rise again.

As evidenced by nonstop news coverage of floods, fires, refugees and violence, our planet has become a more unstable and less predictable place over the past few years. As these disasters compete for our attention, they make it harder for people in poor, marginalized and war-torn regions to access adequate food.

I study decisions that smallholder farmers and pastoralists, or livestock herders, make about their crops, animals and land. These choices are limited by lack of access to services, markets or credit; by poor governance or inappropriate policies; and by ethnic, gender and educational barriers. As a result, there is often little they can do to maintain secure or sustainable food production in the face of crises.

The new UN report shows that to reduce and ultimately eliminate hunger, simply making agriculture more productive will not be enough. It also is essential to increase the options available to rural populations in an uncertain world.

Conflict and Climate Change Threaten Rural Livelihoods

Around the world, social and political instability are on the rise. Since 2010, state-based conflict has increased by 60 percent and armed conflict within countries has increased by 125 percent. More than half of the food-insecure people identified in the UN report (489 million out of 815 million) live in countries with ongoing violence. More than three-quarters of the world’s chronically malnourished children (122 million of 155 million) live in conflict-affected regions.

At the same time, these regions are experiencing increasingly powerful storms, more frequent and persistent drought and more variable rainfall associated with global climate change. These trends are not unrelated. Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.

War hits farmers especially hard. Conflict can evict them from their land, destroy crops and livestock, prevent them from acquiring seed and fertilizer or selling their produce, restrict their access to water and forage, and disrupt planting or harvest cycles. Many conflicts play out in rural areas characterized by smallholder agriculture or pastoralism. These small-scale farmers are some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Supporting them is one of the UN’s key strategies for reaching its food security targets.

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New Study Finds Nature Is Vital to Beating Climate Change

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Published: October 16, 2017

Better stewardship of the land could have a bigger role in fighting climate change than previously thought, according to the most comprehensive assessment to date of how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced and stored in forests, farmland, grasslands and wetlands using natural climate solutions.

The peer-reviewed study, led by scientists from The Nature Conservancy and 15 other institutions, and published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, expanded and refined the scope of land-based climate solutions previously assessed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). The findings are expected to bolster efforts to ensure that large scale protection, restoration, and improved land management practices needed to stabilize climate change are achieved while meeting the demand for food and fiber from global lands.

Accounting for cost constraints, the researchers calculated that natural climate solutions could reduce emissions by 11.3 billion tonnes per year by 2030 – equivalent to halting the burning of oil , and offering 37% of the emissions reductions needed to hold global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2030. Without cost constraints, natural climate solutions could deliver emissions reductions of 23.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, close to a third (30%) more than previous estimates .

Mark Tercek, CEO The Nature Conservancy said: “Today our impacts on the land cause a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. The way we manage the lands in the future could deliver 37% of the solution to climate change. That is huge potential, so if we are serious about climate change, then we are going to have to get serious about investing in nature, as well as in clean energy and clean transport. We are going to have to increase food and timber production to meet the demand of a growing population, but we know we must do so in a way that addresses climate change.”

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