Tag Archive for: Soil Carbon Sequestration

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 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.”

‘Hotspots’ for carbon loss

As part of the study, the researchers designed an artificially intelligent model that used an existing global soil dataset to estimate past levels of soil carbon stocks, Sanderman says.

“We used a dataset which defines 10,000BC as a world without a human footprint. What we did was develop a model that could explain the current distribution of soil carbon across the globe as a function of climate, topography [physical features], geology and land use. Then we replaced current land use with historic reconstructions including the ‘no land use’ case to get predictions of soil carbon levels back in time.”

To calculate an overall soil carbon debt, the researchers subtracted the amount of current global soil carbon from the amount of soil carbon predicted to have existed in the era before human agriculture. The model also allowed the researchers to estimate global soil carbon stocks at different points throughout history, including at the advent of the industrial revolution.

The results allow scientists to get a clearer picture on how 12,000 years of human agriculture have affected the world’s soil stocks, says Sanderman.

“More carbon has been lost due to agriculture than has generally been recognised and a lot of this loss predated the industrial revolution. This loss isn’t equally distributed across agricultural land. Some regions stand out as having lost the most carbon.”

Map B below shows the regions that have experienced the most soil carbon loss, and includes the US corn belt and western Europe. The red shading represents the very highest level of soil carbon loss since 10,000BC, while blue shows the highest level of carbon gain. 

The US corn belt and western Europe are likely to have experienced high levels of soil carbon loss as a result of long periods of intense crop production, says Sanderman.

However, the analysis also reveals a number of regions which have seen high levels of soil carbon loss despite having relatively little farming. These “hot spots” – including the rangelands of Argentina, southern Africa and parts of Australia – are considered to be particularly vulnerable to land degradation driven by agriculture, says Sanderman.

“Semi-arid and arid grasslands [the hotspots] are particularly vulnerable to potentially irreversible degradation if grazing intensity is too high. That’s because there isn’t a lot of soil carbon to start with and there can often be a complete shift in vegetation cover leading to lots of erosion.”

Map A shows the distribution and intensity of crop production (red) and cattle grazing (green) across the world. Both have contributed almost equally to loss of soil carbon stocks, Sanderman says.

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This Is Why When You Talk About Climate Change, You Can’t Ignore Agriculture

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Author: Chelsea Harvey | Published: August 23, 2017 

Agriculture has historically released almost as much carbon into the atmosphere as deforestation, a new study suggests — and that’s saying something.

In a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that land use changes associated with planting crops and grazing livestock have caused a loss of 133 billion tons of carbon from soil worldwide over the last 12,000 years, amounting to about 13 years of global emissions at their current levels. And at least half of those losses have probably occurred in the last few centuries.

“Historically, I think we’ve underestimated the amount of emissions from soils due to land use change,” said lead study author Jonathan Sanderman, an associate scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center, a climate change research organization based in Massachusetts.

The researchers suggest that the findings could be used to help target the places around the world that have lost the most soil carbon, and where restoration efforts — which aim to help store carbon back in the ground through sustainable land management — might make the greatest difference. It’s a strategy many scientists have suggested could be used to help fight climate change.

“We have known that extensive agricultural practices are responsible for depleting soil carbon stocks, but the full extent of these carbon losses has been elusive,” said soil expert Thomas Crowther, who will be starting a position as a professor of global ecosystem ecology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in October, in an email to The Washington Post. “In this study, the authors do a really good job of quantifying how humans have altered the Earth’s surface soil carbon stocks through extensive agriculture, with direct implications for atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the climate.”

Previously, studies on global soil carbon losses have varied wildly in their conclusions, suggesting historical losses of anywhere from 25 billion to 500 billion tons of carbon, Sanderman noted. In general, based on the average findings from multiple studies, scientists have often assumed a total loss of around 78 billion tons, he added.

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Natural Intelligence Farming: Ian and Dianne Haggerty

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Author: Christopher Johns | Published: August 3, 2017 

Key Point

  • Natural Intelligence farming uses natural processes combined with modern agricultural technology to produce food and fibre of optimum nutrition and quality while enhancing positive ecosystem development.
  • Natural Intelligence farming has the potential to sustainably regenerate the agricultural landscape, restore biodiversity and to sequester greenhouse gasses in the soil as beneficial soil carbon.
  • There is a direct link between soil health and human health and there is a growing body of research into this relationship between soil and plant/animal, human and environmental health.
  •  Natural intelligence farming can be applied to broad-acre agricultural production with only small changes to capital equipment and a reduction in operating costs and increased productivity.
  • Once the appropriate logistic infrastructure is available, the produce from Natural Intelligence farming can be market differentiated and priced accordingly for its nutrient diversity and absence of chemicals and other toxins.

Introduction

Natural Intelligence Farming is the term Ian and Dianne Haggerty use to describe the harnessing of the dynamic, natural relationships that exists between all the organisms in the ecosystem and the environment itself, particularly the soil. These relationships are highly complex and versatile. They involve mutually beneficial interactions between the soil, plant seeds and roots, microorganisms, and the ruminants that feed on the plants and cycle dung and microbes back to the soil. Understanding these relationships requires a holistic engagement with the agricultural ecosystem and the body of scientific knowledge supporting this understanding is still incomplete. The key to natural intelligence farming is not to hinder or obstruct the interactions that support and inform these relationships.  The Haggerty’s aim is to facilitate natural intelligence with modern farming methods to create regenerative agricultural ecosystems that produce optimal food and fibre products.

Ian and Dianne farm approximately 13,000 hectares of land in Western Australia’s central wheatbelt, around 190 kilometres north east of Perth. After years of conventional farming, the Haggerty’s realised that their system was vulnerable to dry seasons. Input costs were steadily increasing without corresponding increases in productivity. Soil tests showed adequate nutrient levels, but tissue tests revealed nutrients were not getting to plants in appropriate balance, despite a comprehensive mineral fertiliser program. To top it off, rainfall in recent years had been less than half the annual average often falling in 3 to 5 mm events followed by windy weather, meaning much was lost to evaporation. Maximising crop production in dry years had become a real struggle and hard pans in their soils were severely restricting root growth. So, the Haggerty’s started to research biologically-based farming systems with the aim of increasing their soil’s microbial population, nutrient availability and moisture holding capacity.  What followed was a massive learning curve combining and adapting some of the world’s best ecological knowledge with much ground truthing and extension in harsh Western Australian semi-arid agricultural zone conditions.

Ian and Dianne have a life mission to facilitate positive global change by rebuilding soils in semi-arid regions, producing premium food and fibre and supporting the nutritional needs of humanity to optimise health. In this Feature Interview, FDI takes the opportunity to interview Ian and Dianne and investigate what it is that they are doing differently from other farmers and the benefits of their methods for productivity, ecological regeneration and plant, animal and human health.

Interview

FDI: As an introduction to this Interview could you give us a short history to your association with agriculture and the land?

I&DH:  While coming from long family backgrounds of farmers, neither of us was fortunate enough to inherit a farm so we purchased our own 660ha property in 1994 next door to Di’s parents. It was in the years immediately prior to purchasing our farm, while owning and operating a roadhouse in the Kimberley that we were exposed to some interesting ideas on land management through our contact and friendship with Robyn Tredwell of Birdwood Downs Station (Robyn was the 1995 ABC Rural woman of the year). Her views on using livestock as tools to “Feed, Seed and Weed” the land, penetrated deeply into our psyche even though we were not involved with a rural enterprise at the time.

Purchasing a farm took all our capital reserves so for the first few years we share-farmed our land with Di’s father and worked in return for use of his machinery to grow our crops.

While successfully farming conventionally in the 1990s, and slowly beginning to piece together a working range of plant machinery, it didn’t take long for us to realise that moisture in the soil was key to profitability and that hanging onto that moisture was critical to make a viable crop out of a poor spring. This fact, along with a questioning mind and noticing that there were discrepancies between soil test and tissue test results, sparked a drive for real answers. Reducing risk and increasing profitability year in year out were key goals for the business to progress.

In 2001, we embarked on learning how to improve soil health and productivity in the cropping program. Dr Elaine Ingham’s message of the miracle work of soil microbiological communities in providing optimum balanced nutrition to plants and prevention of disease and insect attack through soil health resonated with us.  At the same time, we consulted with Jane Slattery of South Australia to develop an understanding of ruminant nutrition, intuition and interconnectedness with landscape health.  Working on both the soil and animal health aspects concurrently enabled some wonderful synergies to express and assist with fast tracking the ecological progress of the farm.

 Dr Arden Andersen’s message of the direct link between soil health and human health outcomes rang alarm bells for me [Dianne] as an Occupational Therapist, practising Early Intervention Paediatric and Aged Care occupational therapy as the preventative model for health care which was firmly entrenched. A keen awareness of responsibility as food producers ensued. This was the beginning of an intense learning curve where we pursued the knowledge of many other international and national scientists, leaders in the field of soil health and its relationship to animal, human and environmental and global health.

In 2009 and 2010 we were privileged to be introduced to Dr Christine Jones, Dr Maarten Stapper and Walter Jehne who had considerable knowledge on working soil health principles in Australian agricultural environments. Dr Jones’ “liquid carbon pathway” answered many questions of what was happening within the soil to improve its friability and moisture holding capacity. This was confirmed with deep soil carbon testing in 2012 that confirmed observations with sound figures.  On similar soil types to neighbouring properties, soil carbon was improved by 10t/ha on our cropping land, an increase of 41.46% in the top 30cm of soil.

 It was this knowledge, along with an interest in using livestock to better “feed, seed and weed,” that first motivated us to embark on what has become a life-long passion to farm, together with natural processes, while maintaining a profitable farm business and improving natural capital.

FDI: What are the benefits of your agricultural practices?

I&DH: Our agricultural methods can make a significant contribution to improving global trends in environmental management and human health. There is an existing and growing body of scientific research supporting a wide range of benefits associated with our farming methods. We believe that natural intelligence farming can make a positive contribution in the following areas:

  • Carbon sequestration while producing optimal food and fibre production.
  • Increased biodiversity, particularly microbiological biodiversity in soil.
  • Nil chemical residues tested in grains grown.
  • Nutritional balance in foods grown
  • Decreased or elimination use of synthetic fertilisers.
  • Increased microbiome, the number and diversity of microorganisms in an ecosystem such as the digestive system.
  • Production of fully pasture fed meat that is high in omega-3, conjugated linoleic acid, vitamin E and has greater mineral diversity.
  • Greater reliability in grain crop yields.
  • Crop disease resistance resulting in decreased or eliminated use of fungicides and pesticides.
  • Lower energy requirement for agricultural production.
  • Improved equity.
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Soil Carbon Scheme a World-First for South Australian and Victorian Farmers

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Author: Jess Davis | Published: August 10, 2017

Farmers in Victoria and South Australia are taking part in a world-first carbon capture scheme to generate a new source of income.

The farmers won a bid under the latest round of the Federal Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) announced in April.

One of the farmers, Mr Farmer Steven Hobbs, said the scheme was a bit tokenistic, but that ”a little bit of tokenism was better than none”.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of double standards in the way our Government is approaching our emissions and it’s very tokenistic in many respects,” he said.

But Mr Hobbs said it was a good first step that the Federal Government had recognised soils were capable of storing carbon.

Farming Soil Carbon

The ERF is an auction available to farmers and land managers for projects to capture carbon, similar to the capture of methane in landfill or piggeries.

For soil carbon, farmers are paid roughly $10 for each carbon credit based on how much carbon they can sequester in their soil over a 10-year period.

Farming is like mining soil, said project leader Deane Belfield, Director of Regenerative Australian Farmers.

Mr Belfield said a lot of carbon had been released through farming over time and the plan was to try to reverse the process.

“The incentive for the farmer is to implement regenerative farming practices, to draw down the carbon into the soil, and that’s what they get paid for,” he said.

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Tomkat Ranch: Measuring the Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture With Precision Ag Tech

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Author:Emma Crosgrove | Published: August 2, 2017

Regenerative agriculture is a method of farming that aims to restore the fertility of the soil and the overall health of the land it’s conducted on. There are various ways this can be done that are consistent with sustainable agriculture practices more generally such as limiting the use of synthetic inputs like pesticides and fertilizers and limiting tillage of the soil, which can negatively impact soil health. But often regenerative agriculture involves livestock.

This might seem confusing if you’ve read the countless headlines that livestock farming is the biggest culprit of greenhouse gas emissions — according to the FAO it accounts for 18% of emissions — but there is a school of thought that’s gathering momentum and evidence that managing livestock in certain ways can not only reduce the negative impact of livestock farming on the environment but actually regenerate the land and have a positive impact.

Through what’s called holistic planned grazing, or rotational grazing, ranchers strategically move their cattle around the land so that no one area is too depleted, yet every inch of rangeland is trimmed and fertilized by the cows.

These methods can lead to increased forage production, soil fertility, resistance to drought, water retention, and the sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere into the soil, among other benefits.

TomKat Ranch, a proponent of regenerative ranching, is betting that the rise of precision agriculture and big data technologies could help prove the financial viability of regenerative ranching, as well as the environmental benefits. The idea of adding only what is absolutely necessary to an agricultural process is a fundamental principle behind precision farming, and TomKat is working to apply these principles to cattle grazing.

Kevin Watt, land and livestock manager at TomKat Ranch, thinks that once the benefits of regenerative ranching can be fully quantified — through soil carbon measurements,  forage density, and more — it could become a mainstay of both ranching and soil management.

“When you’re doing something that is regenerative, you’re basically saying that my productive asset should not be losing value. My productive asset should be gaining value, and that appeals to everybody,” Watt told AgFunderNews.

TomKat was founded by Tom Steyer, founder of Farallon Capital, one of the largest hedge funds in the world with roughly $20 billion under management. Steyer left Farallon in 2012 and founded Next Gen Climate, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Though the grazing cattle on his ranch were originally planned as a conservation tactic and not a business, TomKat is now known for its high-quality beef, sold under the brand Leftcoast Grassfed.

Watt started out as Steyer’s neighbor and would take his chickens onto Steyer’s ranch land after the cows had moved off it, so they could feed off the bugs attracted by the cow dung. Then in early 2014, he joined the TomKat team while still running his own Early Bird Ranch and now leads TomKat’s efforts to quantify and justify regenerative ranching in both economic and ecological terms. We caught up with Watt at the Forbes Agtech Summit in Salinas California to find out what kind of technology he’ll need to make his case, and what challenges are standing in the way.

How are you working at TomKat to measure the benefits of regenerative agriculture?

What is really exciting is the fact that we see precision farming booming; the idea of ‘Let’s not use more than we have to. Let’s apply only what we need to at the perfect time. Let’s truly understand the ROI for every input in our operation and capture every co-benefit that we possibly can.’ That is also regenerative agriculture. And so what is exciting is that as we’re better able to quantify and capture what those co-benefits are, whether it’s humane animal treatment or nutritional density, or whether it’s carbon sequestration or watershed services. Our instrumentation is getting better, and we are more effective at quantifying and predicting those things.

So when I manage my cattle in such a way to get the most forage production over the entire year or over the entire decade, what ends up inevitably happening is, like a financial portfolio, I also want to bring in new grass species, new flora, new fauna, to diversify my risk portfolio and in doing so, the photosynthesis through that increased forage production keeps the soil covered, keeps all of that microbial life booming and also grabs atmospheric carbon, transitioning it into sugar through photosynthesis. Typically speaking about 60% to 80% of that sugar is being fed into the microbial community because of its incredible benefits for the plant, but that is building this organic matrix that will hold water and grow me more grass next time.

So like a really good financial portfolio, biomass grows me even more biomass next year. My profits compound.

We have onsite conservation scientists from Point Blue Conservation Science doing very meticulous technician-driven soil tests, vegetation surveys, and wildlife surveys that we can compare to our very rigorous management records and see what strategies grow us more grass, which ones grow us more beef, which ones keep our streams running longer. For every 1% of soil organic matter change, or growth, we get an extra 25,000 gallons of water per acre being stored (and that’s a USDA figure so people know about this).

We’ve learned that if you can get that feedback from your landscape, whether or not you share a philosophical interest in environmentalism or humane treatment of animals, you start to see that it really makes sense to evolve with your landscape; to see what the ROI is on every one of your management choices. That’s why precision ranching could be so transformative.

We are working with partners in aerial monitoring and satellite monitoring to see if there are cheap, effective, and accessible tools that would democratize monitoring. Because currently, rangeland monitoring is very costly because it is so complex.

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Summary of State Efforts To Promote Healthy Soils and Soil Carbon Sequestration

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Date Published: Jul 12, 2017

Conference call notes prepared by Taylor Herren, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions

20 participants joined in a conference call on July 12, 2017 to share knowledge and insights about existing or proposed policies for promoting healthy soils and soil carbon sequestration (SCS) at the state level. This summary is based on that call and receipt of brief notes from all presenters.

There is a growing interest in healthy soils that is being driven by a concern for water, climate, farmers, and many other co-benefits. These interests, coupled by immense concern in the wake of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, have created momentum for state led efforts on SCS. Several states are advancing efforts that promote healthy soils in one form or another. Below is a summary of work happening at the state level that aims to support healthy soils and in particular, SCS.

These state initiatives include a range of approaches such as funding mechanisms for demonstration projects and subsidies for farmers transitioning to healthy soils practices, technical assistance aimed at increasing use of healthy soils practices on agricultural land, and re-orientation of existing programs to prioritize and incentivize healthy soils practices.

California

Jenny Lester Moffitt – Deputy Secretary, California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)

Renata Brillinger – Executive Director, California Climate Action Network (Cal-CAN)

Torri Estrada – Executive Director, Carbon Cycle Institute

California’s Healthy Soils Initiative (HSI) is a collaboration effort that involves a coalition of state agencies and departments of which are being led by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). The HSI is a key part of California’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing carbon sequestration in and on natural and working lands. The goal is to comprehensively look at policies that can support healthy soils through (1) improving governmental agencies, (2) incentivizing ranch and farm practice, and (3) research and education.

CDFA has partnered with the NRCS, the California Climate Action Network (Cal-CAN, California Association of Resource Conservation, the Carbon Cycle Institute, along with several universities have helped to inform the design of the program. Climate legislation (first established in 2006) set the state climate target at 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. The legislations also established a cap and trade market mechanism, which is where funding for the HSI is derived from.

At the end of the legislative session in August 2016, the legislature approved a cap-and-trade budget that included $7.5 million in first-time funding. Half of that funding was earmarked to go directly to farmers and the other half was earmarked for demonstration projects.

The COMET planning tool is used to assess the impact of practices and projects funded by the HSI.

Links to Resources:

Healthy Soils Initiative Fact Sheet

Healthy Soils Action Plan (CDFA)

Cal-CAN Webpage on the Healthy Soils Initiative

Oklahoma

Stacy Hansen – Oklahoma Carbon & Soil Health Program, Water Quality Division, Oklahoma Conservation Commission

The Oklahoma Carbon Sequestration Enhancement Act (Title 27A, Section 3-4-101) was signed into law on April 16, 2001. The law was amended in 2003 and 2011 and is currently unfunded.

The Oklahoma Carbon Sequestration Enhancement Act called for an Advisory Committee to be formed and specified membership, with members to be appointed by the Governor. The Act required the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, with assistance from the advisory committee, to submit a report to the Legislature by December 1, 2002. The Legislature amended the law in May 2002 to modify and add members to the Carbon Sequestration Advisory Committee. The amendment also authorized the Oklahoma Conservation Commission (a non-regulatory agency) to establish and administer the Carbon Sequestration Certification Program.

Partnerships have been critical from the days of the Advisory Committee, to writing the rules, and developing the verification methodologies. The process has included farmers, ranchers, conservation district directors and employees, and representatives from ARS, NRCS, electric cooperatives, electric companies, grain and seed companies, land grant university, the agriculture department, other environmental agencies and non-profits, the association of conservation districts, oil and gas professionals, and EPA Region 6.

A strength of the program is that it was developed in Oklahoma, for Oklahomans, for the benefit of Oklahoma land, air, and water resources. This increased buy-in of partners and participants. Another strength is the program’s simplicity and practicality. The Oklahoma Carbon Program utilizes policies, methods, and standards that are based in science, reasonable to implement, and achievable by producers. While all carbon market programs must strive to assure that their systems are based on sound science and create positive, verifiable benefits, we feel it is imperative that they also be user-friendly and realistic for land managers.

Some interpret the program’s simplicity as a lack of rigor. The program is not linked to a major market or trading registry. The program needs more funding and staff to reach out to Oklahoma businesses, continue the program’s branding, forge partnerships with other states and markets, and to develop projects.

Verification methodologies developed for no-till, seeded grasslands, rangeland, and soil sampling. Application materials and forms developed. Verifiers trained. Current focus is on soil health education ongoing statewide. Program is branded. “Progressive management crediting matrix” drafted for expanding verification and payments based on tiered management approach (see appendix C in this document). Long-time program developer and director is leaving the agency in September 2017. The program is anticipated to continue.

Links to Resources:

Oklahoma Carbon Sequestration Certification Program

Hawaii

Diana Donlon – Food and Climate Campaign Director, Center for Food Safety

On January 25th, 2017 the state of Hawaiʻi introduced House Bill 1578.

This bill “establishes the Carbon Farming Task Force within the Office of Planning to identify agricultural and aquacultural practices to improve soil health and promote carbon sequestration—the capture and long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide to mitigate climate change.”

The bill was shepherded through the legislative process in coalition with Hawai‘i CFS, Sierra Club Hawai‘i and the O‘ahu Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. CFS Soil Solutions program provided written testimony for the measure as it passed through several committee hearings.

On June 6th Hawai‘i Governor David Ige signed this bill into law. He also signed SB559 a law adopting the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. making it a historic day for climate action. The creation of the Carbon Farming Task Force went into effect July 1, 2017 and is a direct outcome of the “Healthy Soils, Healthy Ranching” conference hosted by Hawai ‘i CFS and CFS Soil Solutions in October of 2016 on the island of Moloka‘i.

Maryland

Margie Brassil – Legislative Director, Delegate Dana Stein from the Maryland General Assembly

Susan Frick Payne – Coordinator, Ecosystem Markets and Certainty Programs, Maryland Department of Agriculture

The passage of California’s healthy soils bill was the inspiration for proposing legislation in 2017 that would provide an additional push to Maryland’s efforts. HB 1063 – Maryland Healthy Soils Program—was short and not overly prescriptive. The bill’s stated purpose is to improve the health, yield, and profitability of the soil, increase its carbon sequestration capacity, and promote more widespread use of healthy soils practices among farmers in Maryland. It defines healthy soil as the capacity to function as a biological system, increase organic matter, improve soil structure and water and nutrient-holding capability, and sequester carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bill requires the Department of Agriculture to provide incentives, such as research, education, technical assistance, and subject to funding, financial assistance to farmers to implement practices that create healthy soils.

There were several factors that worked in favor of the bill. First, farmers were already participating in anti-pollution programs to protect the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, which is closely tied to the State’s identity. The Bay’s iconic stature and its role as an engine in the State’s economy through tourism and fishing are ongoing concerns in the State. Strong efforts have been underway for years to reduce the nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution that has hurt the Bay. Farmers have been doing their part to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, largely through a cover crop program subsidized by the State.

Using monies provided by the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund and the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund, grants are made to farmers to plant cover crops to protect their fields from erosion, suppress weeds and pests, and improve soil health. In the 2016/17 fiscal year, 560,000 acres of farmland in Maryland, about 50% of eligible lands, were planted in cover crops. This year, the funds will provide $22.5 million for the cover crop program. In addition, Maryland farmers were among the first in the nation to practice wide-scale, no-till farming—reducing not only sediment loss, but also the amount of carbon released from their fields.

Second, Maryland has an aggressive climate goal – reducing GHG emissions by 40% by 2030 — and in preparing its plan to get to that goal, the Maryland Department of Environment has realized it must consider all options, and sequestration is one of the planned measures. A key reason that Maryland is in the lead among state efforts to fight climate change is that Maryland is the third most vulnerable state to rising sea levels. Much of the lower part of the Bay shoreline is close to sea level; in fact, new maps show that about 5% of the State’s land, approximately 284,000 acres, will be permanently underwater in 30 years or less, with a sea level rise of just two feet. And, of course, that percentage will go up as sea levels continue inevitably to rise. The bulk of at least two counties, much of Ocean City, a large tourist resort, and parts of the capital, Annapolis, will be underwater for good before the end of this century.

Finally, the Healthy Soils Consortium had already pulled together many of the stakeholders that could either support—or oppose—a healthy soils program. Because the Consortium members were already primed to support a program that would improve agriculture and address global warming, the bill only needed some tweaking to win support of the major stakeholders and it sailed through both houses of the Maryland General Assembly: It passed the House of Delegates 137 to 1 and the State Senate 47 to 0.

One of the key takeaways from this legislation is that there is tremendous potential for support for healthy soils because of the joint support between the agricultural and environmental communities—two groups that don’t always get along.

Links to Resources:

Maryland Healthy Soils Program

Vermont

Ryan Patch – Senior Agriculture Development Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets

The Vermont Environmental Stewardship Program (VESP) is a voluntary program that encourages and supports local agricultural producers to achieve environmental and agricultural excellence. VESP’s goal is to accelerate water-quality improvements through additional voluntary implementation efforts, and to honor farmers who have already embraced a high level of land stewardship. This program was conceptualized in 2016 in response to statewide water-quality and environmental challenges.

This effort is being led by a group that includes the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Vermont Association of Conservation Districts, Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and the University of Vermont Cooperative Extension.Currently, there are five farms signed up to participate in the VESP pilot program, and there is still an ongoing search to find five more – all ten of which will be used as demonstration sites.

The VESP Pilot will be utilizing the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) new Resource Stewardship Evaluation Tool (RSET) which is an online platform that streamlines over a half-°©‐dozen individual field assessment tools.

In addition to VESP, there have been three “Regenerative” or “Soils” based bills that have been drafted the past two sessions:

2016: S.159 https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2016/Docs/BILLS/S-0159/S-0159%20As%20Introduced.pdf

2017: S.43 https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2018/Docs/BILLS/S-0043/S-0043%20As%20Introduced.pdf

2017: H.430 https://legislature.vermont.gov/assets/Documents/2018/Docs/BILLS/H-0430/H-0430%20As%20Introduced.pdf

Links to Resources:

VESP website

Description of VESP Pilot Program

Massachusetts

Dan Bensonoff – Policy Director, Education Events Organizer & PR for Educational Events, Massachusetts Chapter of Northeast Organic Farming Association

The Massachusetts legislature is considering a bill (H.3713, An Act to promote healthy soils) that is current written to do two things: (1) define “regenerative agriculture” and (2) create a Healthy Soils Program that would be tasked with enhancing “education, training, employment, income, productivity and retention of those working or aspiring to work in the field of regenerative agriculture in addition to providing incentives for regenerative agriculture.

The necessity of this bill is prompted by a few things. There is currently no one in the MA Department of Agriculture who is a specialist in conservation/agroecology/organic agriculture. In addition to this, last year’s drought cost the state and federal governments a lot of money. Such droughts and other extreme weather are likely to become more common and the thinking is that investing in healthy soils is, in fact, a better use of tax dollars than costly infrastructure.

The plan for implementation is as follows. This program would likely be administered as a grant program, ideally funding will be split into a few different buckets that include demonstration sites that highlight innovative practices (ideally, this would be a private farm in partnership with an NGO/institution that would provide exemplars for others and a site for on-farm research), technical assistance (possibly coupled with direct incentives for farms looking to transition to an approved healthy soils practice, or multiple practices), and possibly towards subsidizing purchase of conservation implements/equipment that would then be leased out to farmers

Improving Africa’s Soils to Cut Emissions and Boost Food Security

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Authors: Keith Shepherd and Rolf Sommer | Published: August 2nd, 2017 

How we manage soils is crucial to tackling climate change. Today is Earth Overshoot Day, which aims to highlight the moment each year when our use of the planet’s resources tips into “overdraft”. The day helps to highlight why restoring landscapes, particularly soils, has benefits for food security, livelihoods and the climate.

The top metre of soils around the world contains about three times as much carbon as in our entire atmosphere. This means that soils can be a double-edged sword for tackling climate change.

Land-use change and degradation, such as clearing land for farming, releases the carbon bound up in soils, adding to the CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere. On the other hand, managing soils carefully and restoring their fertility means they can take up more carbon, helping to mitigate our CO2 emissions and thereby limiting climate change.

In a recent comment article in Nature, leading climate scientists identified achieving zero emissions from land-use changes and deforestation as one of six milestones that must be met within the next three years if we are to meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Restoring degraded lands is one promising option. For example, the 4 parts per 1000initiative (“4p1000”) aims to increase the carbon stored in the world’s soils by 0.4% per year in order to sequester the human-caused CO2 emissions that aren’t already absorbed by the land or oceans.

Recent analysis shows that 25-50% of this target (equivalent to 0.9-1.85bn tonnes of carbon per year) could be achieved on the 16 million square kilometres of suitable farmland across the world. This would sequester about 6-13% of all CO2 emissions from human activity.

Our research has identified several relatively simple, low-cost options for restoring African landscapes to help cut emissions from soils and even turn them into carbon sinks.

Here are three that are key to reaching zero emissions from land:

Soil and water conservation

Water is essential for productive soils, but it can also be disastrous. Heavy rainfall events – likely to become more intense as the climate warms – washes soil off the land, particularly hillsides or in areas with highly erodible soil types. This strips the land of its nutrients, reduces agricultural productivity, and clogs waterways and reservoirs, thus increasing costs for purifying drinking water.

KEEP READING ON CARBON BRIEF 

Bison Returned From the Brink Just in Time for Climate Change

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Author: Deena Shanker | Published: July 31, 2017 

Ted Turner owns more than 100,000 acres of pristine land in southwest Montana, complete with lush grassland and forested hills rolling with Douglas firs. There are populations of wolves, black and grizzly bears, deer, elk and pronghorn antelope ranging freely, some crossing from nearby Yellowstone Park. But the real stars of the Flying D Ranch are his thousands of bison, the American beast once hunted to the edge of extinction.

Turner’s bison don’t need much human intervention to thrive. They breed naturally in the early summer, when the grass is at its most nutritious, and they birth their calves in the fields. The bison can withstand temperature fluctuations and snowfall. The animals are vaccinated for common diseases, but routine antibiotics and synthetic growth hormones aren’t used. When one of the animals dies—on the Flying D Ranch, about 2 percent to 3 percent of the herd perishes each year—the carcass is simply left for scavengers. 

The enormous, shaggy animals are making a comeback as a chic, healthy and environmentally friendly source of meat. But to those in the industry, the animals are just the final piece in a larger ecological puzzle. “The grass business is the business we’re in,” said Mark Kossler, vice president of ranch operations at Turner Enterprises Inc. Keep the grass growing, the philosophy goes, and the rest of the ecosystem will follow. In other words: If you grow the grass, your bison will thrive.

And the bison business is thriving. The meat is healthier than beef, with more protein and less fat than salmon, and it is also more lucrative for ranchers. Nearly 60 percent of bison marketers reported an increase in demand, and 67 percent said they were planning to expand their businesses, according to a survey in May by the National Bison Association, an industry group.

Perhaps what makes this growth most surprising is that it coincides with challenging prices for bison meat. A pound of ground beef retails for $4.99 per pound at the moment, according to USDA data. Ground bison currently sells for more than twice that price, at $10.99 per pound. The past three years have seen a 25 percent growth in sales in the retail and food service sectors, according to the trade group, bringing in about $350 million in 2016.

The bison industry is a bit uncomfortable with a price climb that has no end in sight. There is general concern that if it continues, consumers will eventually stop buying. Ranchers are still scared by a market crash in the early 2000s. Nobody wants the bison bubble to burst again. “We don’t want to price ourselves out of the market,” Kossler said.

Bison keeps flying off store shelves—and not just at farmer’s markets and Whole Foods Market Inc. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. are also sellers, and many ranchers offer direct sales online. In 2016, General Mills Inc.acquired EPIC Provisions, whose Bison Bacon Cranberry Bar, made with 100 percent grass-fed bison, is its bestseller. To keep up, bison backers just announceda new commitment for bison herd restoration: One million bison in North America by 2027, more than doubling the current estimated 391,000.

For now, at least, nature is taking care of bison and the people who raise it, including those in the more than 60 Native American tribes across 19 states working with the NBA. But the bison industry, unlike some of its peers in meat production, is keenly aware that climate change is a looming threat to the health of the herds.

Most farmers and ranchers speak of climate change in hushed tones, if at all, probably because they’re considered part of the problem (PDF). At the July International Bison Conference in Big Sky, Montana, however, climate change was the central theme.

Conference attendees included babies, 6-year-olds, teenagers, millennials, mid-life career changers and grandparents. (“My grandkids call me ‘Buffalo,’” one attendee said.) Amongst the crowds, there seemed to be a consensus that the climate was changing and the bison industry would need to adapt.

In a giant conference room at the Big Sky Resort, about 600 ranchers assembled to listen to James Hurrell, the director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, deliver the keynote presentation on the impacts—past, present and future—of a changing climate. An audible gasp was heard in response to a slide about the warmer temperatures expected by the end of the century, and someone in the audience let out a “whoa” in response to predictions of 100-degree-plus days to come.

In a different presentation, ecologist Joseph Craine presented research showing that the warming temperatures were reducing the protein in grass, leading to smaller bison. He urged the ranchers to pay close attention to (and share) what their animals are eating as they naturally seek out protein. “Everyone has a story on strange things their bison eat,” he said. That information could help everyone.

“Ag is risky and it’s getting riskier from a climate perspective,” Dannele Peck, director of the USDA’s Northern Plains Climate Hub told conference attendees. The agency is working to gather information from, and distribute information to, farmers and ranchers about short-term extreme weather events, as well as long-term climate-related changes. While the websites’ tools, such as climate projections and soil data, are not specifically built for bison, Peck urged the ranchers to use them. After the presentation, she said she was “really hopeful” that the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service will fare well in the final Trump administration budgets.

For many bison ranchers, the need for a symbiotic relationship with the environment is clear. “This organization is fundamentally different, a conservation organization that works very closely with sustainable farming organizations,” said Tom Barthel, the owner of Snake River Farm in Minnesota. He raises bison, cattle, hogs and, according to his business card, “damn fine horses.” Not only do his bison live well on his ranch, they die well, too. The bison are pasture harvested—slaughtered in the field without ever knowing what hit them. He sells his meat directly, and—because bison cooks a little differently than typical beef—includes cooking instructions with his invoices. “These are the cowboys’ cowboys,” he said of the people that become bison ranchers. They care not just about money, but about their land and animals as well.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN 

To Avoid Climate Catastrophe, We’ll Need to Remove Co2 from the Air. Here’s How.

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Author: Mary Hoff | Published: July 19, 2017 

Klaus Lackner has a picture of the future in his mind, and it looks something like this: 100 million semi-trailer-size boxes, each filled with a beige fabric configured into what looks like shag carpet to maximize surface area. Each box draws in air as though it were breathing. As it does, the fabric absorbs carbon dioxide, which it later releases in concentrated form to be made into concrete or plastic or piped far underground, effectively cancelling its ability to contribute to climate change.

Though the technology is not yet operational, it’s “at the verge of moving out of the laboratory, so we can show how it works on a small scale,” says Lackner, director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University. Once he has all the kinks worked out, he figures that, combined, the network of boxes could capture perhaps 100 million metric tons (110 million tons) of CO2 per day at a cost of US$30 per ton — making a discernible dent in the climate-disrupting overabundance of CO2that has built up in the air since humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest 150 years ago.

Lackner is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists around the world who are working on ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, capturing carbon from the atmosphere using plants, rocks or engineered chemical reactions and storing it in soil, products such as concrete and plastic, rocks, underground reservoirs or the deep blue sea.

“We can’t just decarbonize our economy, or we won’t meet our carbon goal.” – Noah Deich

Some of the strategies — known collectively as carbon dioxide removal or negative emissions technologies — are just twinkles in their envisioners’ eyes. Others — low-tech schemes like planting more forests or leaving crop residues in the field, or more high-tech “negative emissions” setups like the CO2-capturing biomass fuel plant that went online last spring in Decatur, Illinois — are already underway. Their common aim: To help us out of the climate change fix we’ve gotten ourselves into.

“We can’t just decarbonize our economy, or we won’t meet our carbon goal,” says Noah Deich, co-founder and executive director with the Center for Carbon Removal in Oakland, California. “We have to go beyond to clean up carbon from the atmosphere. … [And] we need to start urgently if we are to have real markets and real solutions available to us that are safe and cost effective by 2030.”

Many Approaches

Virtually all climate change experts agree that to avoid catastrophe we must first and foremost put everything we can into reducing CO2 emissions. But an increasing number are saying that’s not enough. If we are to limit atmospheric warming to a level below which irreversible changes become inevitable, they argue, we’ll need to actively remove CO2 from the air in fairly hefty quantities as well.

“It’s almost impossible that we would hit 2 °C, and even less so 1.5 [°C], without some sort of negative emissions technology,” says Pete Smith, chair in plant and soil science at the University of Aberdeen and one of the world’s leaders in climate change mitigation.

In fact, scientists from around the world who recently drew up a “road map” to a future that gives us good odds of keeping warming below the 2 ºC threshold lean heavily on reducing carbon emissions by completely phasing out fossil fuels — but also require that we actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Their scheme calls for sequestering 0.61 metric gigatons (a gigaton, abbreviated Gt, is a billion metric tons or 0.67 billion tons) of CO2 per year by 2030, 5.51 by 2050, and 17.72 by 2100. Human-generated CO2 emissions were around 40 Gt in 2015, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s almost impossible that we would hit 2 °C, and even less so 1.5, without some sort of negative emissions technology.” –Pete Smith

Reports periodically appear pointing out that one approach or another is not going to cut it: Trees can store carbon, but they compete with agriculture for land, soil can’t store enough, machines like the ones Lackner envisions take too much energy, we don’t have the engineering figured out for underground storage.

It’s likely true that no one solution is the fix, all have pros and cons, and many have bugs to work out before they’re ready for prime time. But in the right combination, and with some serious research and development, they could make a big difference. And, as an international team of climate scientists recently pointed out, the sooner the better, because the task of reducing greenhouse gases will only become larger and more daunting the longer we delay.

Smith suggests dividing the many approaches into two categories — relatively low-tech “no regrets” strategies that are ready to go, such as reforestation and improving agricultural practice, and advanced options that need substantial research and development to become viable. Then, he suggests, deploy the former and get working on the latter. He also advocates for minimizing the downsides and maximizing the benefits by carefully matching the right approach with the right location.

“There are probably good ways and bad ways of doing everything,” Smith says. “I think we need to find the good ways of doing these things.”

Deich, too, supports the simultaneous pursuit of multiple options. “We don’t want a technology, we want lots of complementary solutions in a broader portfolio that updates often as new information about the solutions emerges.”

With that in mind, here is a quick look at some of the main approaches being considered, including a ballpark projection based on current knowledge of CO2 storage potential distilled from a variety of sources — including preliminary results from a University of Michigan study expected to be released later this year — as well as summaries of advantages, disadvantages, maturity, uncertainties and thoughts about the circumstances under which each might best be applied.

Afforestation and Reforestation

Pay your entrance fee, drive up a winding road through Sequoia National Park in California, hike half a mile through the woods, and you’ll find yourself at the feet of General Sherman, the world’s largest tree. With some 52,500 cubic feet (1,487 cubic meters) of wood in its trunk, the behemoth has more than 1,400 metric tons (1,500 tons) of CO2 trapped in its trunk alone.

Though its size is clearly exceptional, the General gives an idea of trees’ potential to suck CO2 from the air and store it in wood, bark, leaf and root. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that a single hectare (2.5 acres) of forest can take up somewhere between 1.5 and 30 metric tons (1.6 and 33 tons) of CO2 per year, depending on the kinds of trees, how old they are, the climate and so on.

Worldwide forests currently sequester on the order of 2 Gt CO2per year. Concerted efforts to plant trees in new places (afforest) and replant deforested acreage (reforest) could increase this by a gigaton or more, depending on species, growth patterns, economics, politics and other variables. Forest management practices emphasizing carbon storage and genetic modification of trees and other forest plants to improve their ability to take up and store carbon could push these numbers higher.

Another way to help enhance trees’ ability to store carbon is to make long-lasting products from them — wood-frame buildings, books and so on. Using carbon-rich wood for construction, for example, could extend trees’ storage capacity beyond forests’ borders, with wood storage and afforestation combining for a potential 1.3–14 Gt CO2 per year possible, according to The Climate Institute, an Australia-based research organization.

Carbon Farming

Most farming is intended to produce something that’s harvested from the land. Carbon farming is the opposite. It uses plants to trap CO2, then strategically uses practices such as reducing tilling, planting longer-rooted crops and incorporating organic materials into the soil to encourage the trapped carbon to move into — and stay in — the soil.

“Currently, many agricultural, horticultural, forestry and garden soils are a net carbon source. That is, these soils are losing more carbon than they are sequestering,” notes Christine Jones, founder of the Australia-based nonprofit Amazing Carbon. “The potential for reversing the net movement of CO2 to the atmosphere through improved plant and soil management is immense. Indeed, managing vegetative cover in ways that enhance the capacity of soil to sequester and store large volumes of atmospheric carbon in a stable form offers a practical and almost immediate solution to some of the most challenging issues currently facing humankind.”

Soil’s carbon-storing capacity could go even higher if research initiatives by the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, a U.S. government agency that provides research support for innovative energy technologies, and others aimed at improving crops’ capacity to transfer carbon to the soil are successful. And, points out Eric Toensmeier, author of The Carbon Farming Solution, the capacity of farmland to store carbon can be dramatically increased by including trees in the equation as well.

“Generally it is practices that incorporate trees that have the most carbon [storage] — often two to 10 times more carbon per hectare, which is a pretty big deal,” Toensmeier says.

Other Vegetation 

Although forests and farmland have drawn the most attention, other kinds of vegetation — grasslands, coastal vegetation, peatlands — also take up and store CO2, and efforts to enhance their ability to do so could contribute to the carbon storage cause around the world.

Coastal plants, such as mangroves, seagrasses and vegetation inhabiting tidal salt marshes, excel at sequestering CO2 — significantly more per area than terrestrial forests, according to Meredith Muth, international program manager with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“These are incredibly carbon-rich ecosystems,” says Emily Pidgeon, Conservation International senior director of strategic marine initiatives. That’s because the oxygen-poor soil in which they grow inhibits release of CO2 back to the atmosphere, so rather than cycling back into the atmosphere, carbon simply builds up layer by layer over the centuries. With mangroves sequestering roughly 1,400 metric tons (1,500 tons) per hectare (2. 5 acres); salt marshes, 900 metric tons (1,000 tons); and seagrass, 400 metric tons (400 tons), restoring lost coastal vegetation and extending coastal habitats holds potential to sequester substantial carbon. And researchers are eyeing strategies such as reducing pollution and managing sediment disturbance to make these ecosystems absorb even more CO2.

And, Pidgeon adds, such vegetation provides a double climate benefit because it also helps protect coastlines from erosion as warming causes sea level to rise.

“It’s the perfect climate change ecosystem, especially in some of the more vulnerable places,” she says. “It provides storm protection, erosion control, maintains the local fishery. In terms of climate change, it’s immensely valuable, whether talking mitigation or adaptation.”

KEEP READING ON ENSIA

Soil Carbon 4 Per Mille

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 Published: April 17, 2017 

Abstract

The ‘4 per mille Soils for Food Security and Climate’ was launched at the COP21 with an aspiration to increase global soil organic matter stocks by 4 per 1000 (or 0.4 %) per year as a compensation for the global emissions of greenhouse gases by anthropogenic sources. This paper surveyed the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock estimates and sequestration potentials from 20 regions in the world (New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Tanzania, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, India, China Taiwan, South Korea, China Mainland, United States of America, France, Canada, Belgium, England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Russia). We asked whether the 4 per mille initiative is feasible for the region. The outcomes highlight region specific efforts and scopes for soil carbon sequestration. Reported soil C sequestration rates globally show that under best management practices, 4 per mille or even higher sequestration rates can be accomplished. High C sequestration rates (up to 10 per mille) can be achieved for soils with low initial SOC stock (topsoil less than 30 t C ha− 1), and at the first twenty years after implementation of best management practices. In addition, areas which have reached equilibrium will not be able to further increase their sequestration. We found that most studies on SOC sequestration only consider topsoil (up to 0.3 m depth), as it is considered to be most affected by management techniques. The 4 per mille number was based on a blanket calculation of the whole global soil profile C stock, however the potential to increase SOC is mostly on managed agricultural lands. If we consider 4 per mille in the top 1m of global agricultural soils, SOC sequestration is between 2-3 Gt C year− 1, which effectively offset 20–35% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. As a strategy for climate change mitigation, soil carbon sequestration buys time over the next ten to twenty years while other effective sequestration and low carbon technologies become viable. The challenge for cropping farmers is to find disruptive technologies that will further improve soil condition and deliver increased soil carbon. Progress in 4 per mille requires collaboration and communication between scientists, farmers, policy makers, and marketeers.

KEEP READING ON SCIENCE DIRECT