Tag Archive for: Soil Carbon Sequestration

Biochar Market: Agriculture Sector and Waste Management Leading Application Segments

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Author: Hiren Samani | Published: October 11, 2017

Biomass, the carbon-rich product produced from the pyrolytic treatment of biomass or greenwaste, can be used to improve the environment and agriculture in a number of ways. The high level of persistence of the substance in soil combined with its nutrient-retention properties make it an ideal solution for soil amendment and a way of improving crop yields. Moreover, the substance is used as an ideal way of carbon sequestration, providing significant implications for the mitigation of environmental degradation owing to the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In a recent report, Transparency Market Research estimates that the global biochar market will chart an impressive CAGR of 14.5% from 2017 to 2025, incrementing to an opportunity of US$14,751.8 thousand by 2025 from its estimated valuation of US$444.2 thousand in 2016.

In this blog post, TMR analysts answer questions related to some of the most crucial aspects of the Global Biochar Market:

Which feedstock is most prominently used for the production of biochar?

A variety of feedstock is used for the production of biochar, including animal manure, woody biomass, agricultural waste, and produces such as sugarcane, coconut, rice, bamboo, and cereals. Of these, the segment of woody biomass accounted for nearly 50% of the overall market in 2016. The high quality of biochar produced from woody biomass finds vast usage in the field of soil amendment. The improvement of quality of soil achieved with the use of biochar is highly valued in areas such as agriculture, forestry, and gardening. In the near future as well, woody biomass will continue to remain the most used feedstock for the production of biochar, accounting for a significant share of the global biochar market in the near future.

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Diversity of Large Animals Plays an Important Role in Carbon Cycle

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Author: Taylor Kubota | Published: October 10, 2017

Trees in tropical forests are well known for removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing the potent greenhouse gas as carbon in their leafy branches and extensive roots. But a new analysis led by Stanford University researchers finds that large forest animals are also an important part of the carbon cycle.

The findings are based on more than a million records of animal sightings and activity collected by 340 indigenous technicians in the Amazon during more than three years of environmental surveys, coordinated by ecologist Jose Fragoso and supported by biologist Rodolfo Dirzo, who were working together at Stanford at the time. The team found that places where animals are most diverse correlate with places that have the most carbon sequestered in the soil.

“It’s not enough to worry about the trees in the world holding carbon. That’s really important but it’s not the whole story,” said Fragoso. “We also have to worry about maintaining the diversity and abundance of animals, especially mammals at this point, in order to ensure a well-functioning carbon cycle and the retention of carbon in soils.”

Although scientists have long understood that animals — through ingestion, digestion, breathing and decomposition — are part of the carbon cycle, the work, published Oct. 9 in Nature Ecology and Evolution is the first to suggest the importance of animal biodiversity rather than just animal numbers in the carbon cycle.

If we want to increase carbon sequestration, we have to preserve not only high numbers of animals but also many different species, the authors said.

Mining an unprecedented data source

The inspiration for this work came from a conversation during a Biology Department happy hour years ago. The scientists knew that an ecosystem with more species generally functions better, which they assumed should include the carbon cycle. Proving the relationship between animal diversity and carbon, however, was not so straightforward.

“It is a very difficult idea to test regarding vertebrates in a real-world system such as the Amazon,” said Mar Sobral, lead author of the paper, who was a postdoctoral researcher in the Dirzo Lab during this research. “The amount of data needed to test such an idea is massive and the type of data is a big challenge. The economic resources, time and logistics involved in our project are unprecedented.”

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Green in the Desert: Local Farmer Captures Carbon to Grow Food, Feed Community

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Author: Chilton Tippin | Published: October 7, 2017

Shahid Mustafa is the first to admit his farm might not look as orderly as those you see while driving down the highway.

At Taylor Hood Farms, you won’t find manicured rows or flood-irrigated fields. Nor will you notice bed after bed of a single crop like alfalfa, commodity cotton or chile peppers.

To hear Mustafa say it, there’s a little bit of chaos in nature. Some of that chaos reflects in the appearance of his farm, where red amaranth grows tall and sweet carrots fill beds near lemon cucumbers and artichokes. But embracing nature’s way, according to Mustafa, could offer key solutions to some of the region’s most urgent environmental and health difficulties—even if some chaos is part of the package.

“The regenerative way is to work with nature, instead of against it,” he said. “Our philosophy is that the best food comes from the best soil, so most of our focus and attention is on enriching or enhancing the soil that we have.”

In the Paso del Norte region, Mustafa is pioneering an innovative approach to farming called regenerative agriculture. The practice could help restore topsoils degraded by conventional farming techniques, to say nothing of its implications for ensuring residents have consistent access to healthy foods.

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Soil Holds Potential to Slow Global Warming, Stanford Researchers Find

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Author: Rob Jordan | Published: October 5, 2017

If you want to do something about global warming, look under your feet. Managed well, soil’s ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated, according to Stanford researchers who claim the resource could “significantly” offset increasing global emissions. They call for a reversal of federal cutbacks to related research programs to learn more about this valuable resource.

The work, published in two overlapping papers Oct. 5 in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics and Global Change Biology, emphasizes the need for more research into how soil – if managed well – could mitigate a rapidly changing climate.

“Dirt is not exciting to most people,” said Earth system science professor Rob Jackson, lead author of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics article and co-author of the Global Change Biology paper. “But it is a no-risk climate solution with big co-benefits. Fostering soil health protects food security and builds resilience to droughts, floods and urbanization.”

Humble, yet mighty

Organic matter in soil, such as decomposing plant and animal residues, stores more carbon than do plants and the atmosphere combined. Unfortunately, the carbon in soil has been widely lost or degraded through land use changes and unsustainable forest and agricultural practices, fires, nitrogen deposition and other human activities. The greatest near-term threat comes from thawing permafrost in Earth’s northern reaches, which could release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Despite these risks, there is also great promise, according to Jackson and Jennifer Harden, a visiting scholar in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and lead author of the Global Change Biology paper.

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Farmers Can Be Profitable AND Sequester Carbon to Help Climate Change

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The path to passing a nationwide Carbon Fee and Dividend requires building connections, sharing knowledge, and celebrating small wins along the way. Most of all, it requires listening. The recent achievements of our Columbia County, N.Y. chapter are a prime example of this strategy at work.

Author: Mary Dixon, Citizens’ Climate Lobby | Published: October 3, 2017

Small-scale farmers abound in rural Columbia County. In January, the area’s CCL chapter hosted an event to educate community members on the potential of carbon farming practices to offset the effects of climate change, bringing together scientists, growers and experts in land management. The gathering also caught the attention of political leaders, including U.S. Representative John Faso, who represents New York’s 19th Congressional District and sits on the House Agriculture Committee. He’s also a member of the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus.

As a follow-up to this event, CCL representatives invited Rep. Faso to visit a farm in his district to learn more about carbon farming and hear from his constituents. Faso said yes, and the Congressman, along with the CCL chapter’s Agriculture Liaison Jan Storm, paid a visit to the nearby Stone House Farm.

Stone House Farm is a living model of the many benefits of regenerative agriculture. The farm’s key practices—including tillage reduction, cover crops, companion planting, crop rotation, planned grazing and keyline plowing—improve soil quality, making it more resilient to climate conditions like flooding and drought and less susceptible to erosion. These practices also increase soil’s organic matter. Soils with more organic matter require less fertilizer, which in turn means less runoff into waterways and greater profitability for farmers. Perhaps most important of all, managing farms this way actually draws carbon out of the atmosphere. If all cropland in the U.S. was farmed using regenerative practices, the GHG reduction would be equivalent to eliminating nearly 90 percent of our country’s cars.

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Organic Better Than Chemical-Intensive Agriculture at Fighting Climate Change

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Published: September 19, 2017

(Beyond Pesticides, September 19, 2017) Soils on organic farms sequester more carbon for a longer period of time when compared to the soil on conventional chemical-intensive farms, according to a study conducted by researchers from Northeastern University and The Organic Center. The continuing effects of climate change necessitate a robust approach to both limiting and reducing carbon in the earth’s atmosphere. As the study shows, a wholesale transition from conventional to organic farming could play an important part in mitigating the effects of a warming planet.

In order to assess the impact of the differing production practices, researchers compared the soil on over 1000 organic and conventional farms throughout the U.S. Focus was placed on how the different approaches impact soil organic carbon, which is simply the amount of carbon contained in soil, and consists of two sources. The first is carbon that cycles through air, soil, and microorganisms. The second is more stable in the soil, and is contained in soil humus. Humus is not cycled in and out of soil. It is a complex of decayed organic matter that stores essential elements including carbon and nutrients in a highly stable state. The primary substances that make up humus are fluvic and humic acid, and the percentage of each was also measured by researchers at each farm observed in the study.

Results show that soils on organic farms contain 13% more total soil organic carbon than conventional farms. Levels of fluvic and humic acid were also 150% and 44% higher respectively in soils on organic farms when compared to conventional counterparts. Further, the study indicates that ability of organic soils to be a long-term source for carbon sequestration through the process of turning organic matter into humus (humification) was 26% higher in organic soils than conventional ones. Researchers indicate, “With the exception of water retention, comparisons of soil organic matter, fluvic acid, humic acid, and humification suggest that organic farming practices support healthy soils and build and/or or maintain soil organic matter more effectively than conventional farming practices.”

These data are in line with previous research that has revealed the benefits and role that organic farming practices can play in carbon reduction through sequestration. According to calculations from the Rodale Institute in 2014, soil sequestration has the potential to store the greenhouse gas emissions of up to 52 gigatonnes of CO2.

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Breakthrough Study Shows Organic Cuts Agriculture’s Contribution to Climate Change

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Published: September 11, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A new groundbreaking study proves soils on organic farms store away appreciably larger amounts of carbons – and for longer periods — than typical agricultural soils.

The important study, directed by Northeastern University in collaboration with The Organic Center, provides a new significant proof point that organic agricultural practices build healthy soils and can be part of the solution in the fight on global warming.

The new data will be published in the Oct. 1 issue of the scientific journal Advances in Agronomy. One of the largest field studies of its kind ever conducted, the study pulls together over a thousand soil samples from across the nation. It uses cutting-edge methods to look at how organic farming affects the soil’s ability to lock away carbon and keep it out of our atmosphere.

One of its most compelling findings is that on average, organic farms have 44% higher levels of humic acid — the component of soil that sequesters carbon over the long term — than soils not managed organically.

Agriculture is one of the main causes of the depletion of carbon in the soil and the increased presence of carbon in our atmosphere, as evidenced by a recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences that estimated agriculture’s role in global soil carbon loss. Organic farming can play a key role in restoring soil carbon and in reducing the causes of climate change, and this study proves that.

Working with Dr. Elham Ghabbour and Dr. Geoffrey Davies, leaders of the National Soil Project at Northeastern University, The Organic Center contacted organic farmers who acted as “citizen scientists” to collect organic soil samples from throughout the country to compare with the conventional soil samples already in the National Soil Project’s data set.

Altogether, the study measured 659 organic soil samples from 39 states and 728 conventional soil samples from all 48 contiguous states. It found that ALL components of humic substances were higher in organic than in conventional soils.

“This study is truly groundbreaking,” said Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center. “We don’t just look at total soil organic carbon, but also the components of soil that have stable pools of carbon – humic substances, which gives us a much more accurate and precise view of the stable, long-term storage of carbon in the soils.”

“To our knowledge, this research is also the first to take a broad-view of organic and conventional systems, taking into account variation within management styles, across crops, and throughout the United States. It gives a large-scale view of the impact of organic as a whole, throughout the nation,” said Dr. Shade.

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Farmland Can Sequester Carbon From the Atmosphere

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Author: Jan Sluizer | Published: August 21, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO —
California rancher John Wick says the Marin Carbon Project could help save the world from climate change.

“How would you possibly know, looking out at this beautiful day in front of us, that the Earth is crashing?” he asks, rhetorically. “But when scientists measure it and see the effect of it, and watch the ocean die-off and everything happening, this is scary as hell. And, then, we have evidence that there might be something that could stop that. And, then, we had measurement of something that holds promise to actually reverse it.”

That “something” is carbon farming, using processed compost to cool the Earth. It’s a theory developed by rangeland ecologist Jeff Creque, who also promotes beneficial land management practices to increase the health of agricultural systems.

“Agriculture is the art of moving carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the vegetation to the soil and, then, back again,” he says, explaining, “If we can increase the rate of carbon capture and decrease the rate of carbon loss, we can actually begin to bend that Keeling curve of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the other direction, which is what we need to achieve.”

Wick met the ecologist when he turned to him for help restoring his ranchland, which had been overgrazed by cattle, and overrun with invasive weeds and brush. After implementing a strategic grazing disruption plan Creque designed, deep-rooted native flora gradually returned to the property.

Wick was now a firm believer in Creque’s theories, and to prove them, they founded the Marin Carbon Project. In December, 2008, they covered a carbon-depleted test plot on Wick’s land with one and a quarter centimeters of processed compost, next to another grazed test plot without compost. They wanted to see if the compost-treated land would pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester durable carbon during photosynthesis.

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CGIAR Gets Serious About Soil Carbon as Home of 4p1000 Initiative

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CGIAR will host 4p1000, a new initiative which places soils at the heart of climate solutions

Author: Alain Vidal | Published: August 23, 2017

To help us halt the warming of our world, it is time to take a good look beneath our feet. Capturing soil carbon in soils is one of our best bets for mitigating significant greenhouse gas emissions.

At the recent Eat Forum in Stockholm, Johan Rockström and Walter Willet reminded us of this in their State of People and the Planet speech, which highlighted that reaching the Paris Agreement goal will be challenging and require an ‘agrarian revolution’, where our food system becomes part of a global roadmap for rapid decarbonization. Sequestering more carbon in the soil is an option that would significantly contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement goal.

However, we still lack the knowledge needed to sustainably manage soil for carbon sequestration. Launched during COP21 under the leadership of the French Government, the global 4p1000 initiative is currently rallying effort to overcome this gap.

On paper, a 0.4% annual growth rate of carbon stored in soils would make it possible to stop the present increase in atmospheric CO2. In the real world of agricultural and forest soils, this target may be difficult to reach or limited in time, but any effort towards storing carbon in soils or halting carbon release, especially from agricultural soils, would dramatically move our food system from the ‘bench of culprits’ to part of the solutions to mitigate climate change.

But there is more. Farmers and agronomists have known for centuries that more carbon in soils means more fertility, less erosion and better water storage. This means better adaptation to increased climate variability and better income for farmers, yielding better food and nutrition security, especially in the developing world.

The 4p1000 secretariat is now hosted by the CGIAR System Organization, under an agreement signed in Montpellier on 29 June, 2017. The initiative provides a multi-stakeholder platform to facilitate partnerships, bringing together more than 250 contributors in both the public and private sectors under the framework of the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) of the UNFCCC. The initiative will promote research-based solutions along four pillars:

• a multi-stakeholder platform to facilitate partnerships
• a tool to assess projects based on a set of references and indicators
• an international research program exploring the potential of soil carbon sequestration, innovative soil practices, the required enabling environment, and the monitoring, reporting and verification of solutions
• a digital resources center on carbon in soils

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World’s Soils Have Lost 133bn Tonnes of Carbon Since the Dawn of Agriculture

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Author: Daisy Dunne | Published: August 25, 2017

The world’s soils have lost a total of 133bn tonnes of carbon since humans first started farming the land around 12,000 years ago, new research suggests. And the rate of carbon loss has increased dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution.

The study, which maps where soil carbon has been lost and gained since 10,000BC, shows that crop production and cattle grazing have contributed almost equally to global losses.

Understanding how agriculture has altered soil carbon stocks is critical to finding ways to restore lost carbon to the ground, another scientist tells Carbon Brief, which could help to buffer the CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere.

Soil as a carbon sink

The top metre of the world’s soils contains three times as much carbon as the entire atmosphere, making it a major carbon sink alongside forests and oceans.

Soils play a key role in the carbon cycle by soaking up carbon from dead plant matter. Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and pass carbon to the ground when dead roots and leaves decompose.

But human activity, in particular agriculture, can cause carbon to be released from the soil at a faster rate than it is replaced. This net release of carbon to the atmosphere contributes to global warming.

New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (pdf), estimates the total amount of carbon that has been lost since humans first settled into agricultural life around 12,000 years ago.

The research finds that 133bn tonnes of carbon, or 8% of total global soil carbon stocks, may have been lost from the top two metres of the world’s soil since the dawn of agriculture. This figure is known as the total “soil carbon debt”.

Around two-thirds of lost carbon could have ended up in the atmosphere, while the rest may have been transported further afield before being deposited back into the soil.

And since the industrial revolution, the rate of soil carbon loss has increased, says lead author Dr Jonathan Sanderman, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Considering humans have emitted about 450bn tonnes of carbon since the industrial revolution, soil carbon losses to the atmosphere may represent 10 to 20% of this number. But it has hard to calculate exactly how much of this has ended up in the atmosphere versus how much has been transported due to erosion.”

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