Tag Archive for: Soil Carbon Sequestration

Soil Sequestration

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Author: Michelle Leslie

Dirt.

It’s a major building block of life on Earth and it’s found under our feet. Now, with the world gearing up its fight against climate change, dirt is taking on even more importance, because three-quarters of the world’s carbon is stored in soil.

According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), CO2 emissions rose almost 20 percent between 1995-2005. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere leads to a condition known as radiative forcing (RF), and its effects are becoming more pronounced, as global temperatures rise and the climate changes rapidly.

Unfortunately, current industrial agricultural practices are accelerating this damage, stripping carbon from our soil and releasing it into the atmosphere .

According to World Resources Institute, in 2011, farms accounted for 13% of total global emissions. That startling statistic means more attention is being paid to the long-term storage or sequestration of carbon in soils, as this can play a critical role in stabilizing global temperatures.

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants take in sunlight, water and carbon from the atmosphere and turn it into energy in the form of oxygen. Increasing the amount of greenery is like sticking a vacuum cleaner into the atmosphere and sucking out the carbon. Plants are nature’s vacuum cleaner. The more of them that grow, the more carbon is sucked out of the atmosphere and drawn back into the dirt. And even when the plant dies and decomposes, most of that carbon stays out of the atmosphere. Instead, it is added to the soil.

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A Boon for Soil, and for the Environment

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Author: Beth Gardiner

When Gabe Brown and his wife bought their farm near Bismarck, North Dakota, from her parents in 1991, testing found the soil badly depleted, its carbon down to just a quarter of levels once considered natural in the area.

Today the Brown farm and ranch is home to a diverse and thriving mix of plants and animals. And carbon, the building block of the rich humus that gives soil its density and nutrients, has more than tripled. That is a boon not just for the farm’s productivity and its bottom line, but also for the global climate.

Agriculture is often cast as an environmental villain, its pesticides tainting water, its hunger for land driving deforestation. Worldwide, it is responsible for nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, though, a growing number of experts, environmentalists and farmers themselves see their fields as a powerful weapon in the fight to slow climate change, their very soil a potentially vast repository for the carbon that is warming the atmosphere. Critically for an industry that must produce an ever-larger bounty to feed a growing global population, restoring lost carbon to the soil also increases its ability to support crops and withstand drought.

“Everyone talks about sustainable,” Mr. Brown said. “Why do we want to sustain a degraded resource? We need to be regenerative, we need to take that carbon out of the atmosphere and put it back into the cycle, where it belongs.”

Since people began farming, the world’s cultivated soils have lost 50 percent to 70 percent of their natural carbon, said Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at the Ohio State University. That number is even higher in parts of south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, he added.

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A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon

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Author: Carolyn Lochhead

A compost experiment that began seven years ago on a Marin County ranch has uncovered a disarmingly simple and benign way to remove carbon dioxide from the air, holding the potential to turn the vast rangeland of California and the world into a weapon against climate change.

The concept grew out of a unique Bay Area alignment of a biotech fortune, a world-class research institution and progressive-minded Marin ranchers. It has captured the attention of the White House, the Brown administration, the city of San Francisco, officials in Brazil and China, and even House Republicans, who may not believe in climate change but like the idea that “carbon farming” could mean profits for ranchers.

Experiments on grazing lands in Marin County and the Sierra foothills of Yuba County by UC Berkeley bio-geochemist Whendee Silver showed that a one-time dusting of compost substantially boosted the soil’s carbon storage. The effect has persisted over six years, and Silver believes the carbon will remain stored for at least several decades.

The experiments were instigated by John Wick and his wife, Peggy, heiress to the Amgen biotech fortune, on a 540-acre ranch they bought in Nicasio. What began as a search for an artist’s studio turned into a seven-year, $8 million journey through rangeland ecology that has produced results John Wick calls “the most exciting thing I can think of on the planet right now.”

Spreading scraps

The research showed that if compost from green waste — everything from household food scraps to dairy manure — were applied over just 5 percent of the state’s grazing lands, the soil could capture a year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from California’s farm and forestry industries.

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Soil Could Save Earth From Overheating

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Author: Tim Radford

LONDON, 17 April, 2016 − Climate scientists anxious to find ways to limit atmospheric greenhouse gases have started to look at the ground beneath their feet.

They calculate that although the world’s soils already hold 2.4 trillion tonnes of gases in the form of organic carbon, there’s room for more.

Scientists from the US and Scotland report in Nature journal that with a few changes to agricultural practice, there would be room for another 8 billion tonnes.

“In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change in the 21st century, we need heavyweight allies,” says Dave Reay, a geoscientist and specialist in carbon management at Edinburgh University. “One of the most powerful is right beneath our feet. Soils are already huge stores of carbon, and improved management can make them even bigger.”

Data availability

“Too long they have been overlooked as a means to tackle climate change. Too often have problems of accurate measurement and reporting stymied progress towards climate-smart soil management.

KEEP READING ON CLIMATE NEWS NETWORK

Soil4Climate and Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute Release Earth Day Climate Policy Brief – Emphasize Soil

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THETFORD, Vermont — April 22, 2016 — Soil4Climate today announced that an Earth Day climate policy brief prepared jointly with the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE), has been released.

To summarize, the policy brief states that cutting fossil fuel emissions, on its own, will not suffice to meet the temperature goals set by the agreement reached during the Paris climate negotiations in December 2015, to be signed today by participating nations in New York. In addition to decreased emissions, active removal, or drawdown, of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, through the implementation of innovative agricultural practices, will also be required.

As noted in the policy brief, “While reducing energy and industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases is essential, reducing emissions from forests, grasslands, wetlands, and soils, and enhancing their capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offers a crucial pathway for success in meeting the Paris temperature goals.”

Seth Itzkan, cofounder of Soil4Climate and contributor to the brief, said, “Soil4Climate is pleased to have collaborated with the team at the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute on this climate policy brief. Expanding awareness of soil as a climate solution is core to our mission.”

The GDAE/Soil4Climate policy brief is available at https://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/climate/ClimatePolicyBrief3.pdf.

The GDAE homepage is at https://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/.

Join the Soil4Climate Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/.

Farmers are Capitalizing on Carbon Sequestration: How Much is Your Carbon-Rich Soil Worth?

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Author: Brian Barth

Carbon farming—a catch-all phrase to describe the cultivation techniques that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (where it causes global warming) and convert it into carbon-based compounds in the soil that aid plant growth—has long been touted as a way to enlist farmers in the fight against climate change. Thanks to the growing market for carbon sequestration, farmers could soon stand to profit from such good deeds.

Environmentally-minded farmers are well aware that building up soil carbon is one key to achieving high yields without chemical inputs. It’s through the expansion of global carbon markets, however, where polluting corporations purchase “carbon credits” to offset their carbon emissions, that farmers are starting to get paid for adopting these practices.

When these polluters purchase carbon credits, the money goes to another company, organization, or project that has prevented an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases (GHGs) from entering the atmosphere (which can include a farmer). The transaction is mitigated by a broker, called a carbon registry. In the past, wind farms, solar panel facilities, and reforestation projects were among the most common recipients of carbon credits, but farm-based carbon credits are becoming more widely available. Notably, Australia, Alberta, Kenya, and California now have active programs to reward on-farm carbon sequestration.

Measuring the actual amount of carbon sequestered in soil and plants is a costly and inexact science, which is one reason that farm-based approaches haven’t been widely accepted by carbon credit programs yet. (It’s much easier to quantify reduced carbon emissions with things like solar power.) Rather than measuring the carbon sequestered on each farm, carbon credit programs rely on the average carbon sequestration ability of particular practices (like adding organic matter to the soil, planting cover crops, and reducing soil disturbance) that have been tested over time and scientifically verified. The bottom line is that farmers aren’t expected to calculate their own soil carbon levels—it’ll be inferred by the credit-granting organization based on their farming practices.

To help farmers get an idea of their current climate impacts and prospects for earning carbon credits, however, the USDA now has a free web-based tool called COMET-Farm, which provides an approximate carbon footprint based on user-supplied data and allows farmers to apply different land management scenarios to see which has the greatest carbon sequestering ability.

So how much might a farmer make for their soil carbon? Not much, at least not yet.

Here is how it works: Land-based carbon sequestration is measured in metric tons per hectare (2.5 acres); one metric ton earns one carbon credit, making the math easy. In California—the only state in the US with a full-fledged cap-and-trade program—the current value of a carbon credit is around $12 to $13. (Farmers in other states, by the way, are eligible to earn credits through the California carbon market.) Alberta, which has the most robust carbon market in Canada and rewards several agricultural practices with carbon credits, raised the price of carbon credits from $15 to $20 on January 1, 2016; in 2017, the price will go up to $30 per credit.

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Interview: Researcher, Author Eric Toensmeier Explores Practical, Effective Carbon Farming Strategies

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While this interview was being prepared a story surfaced on public radio about a couple of enterprising Americans who are taking advantage of changing policy to open a factory in Cuba. Their product? Tractors! The whole idea, the story helpfully explained, was to introduce “21st century farming” to the beleaguered island. By making it easier to tear up the soil. Clearly there is some distance to go before an accurate idea of 21st century farming penetrates the mainstream. It will take people like Eric Toensmeier. His new book, The Carbon Farming Solution, carries enough heft, range and detail to clear away forests of confusion. If the notion of leaving carbon in the soil is going to take its place next to that of leaving oil in the ground, this one-volume encyclopedia on the subject is exactly the kind of deeply informed work that’s required. Reached at his home in western Massachusetts, Toensmeier was exhilarated over finishing a project years in the making, and more than happy to talk about it.

This interview appears in the May 2016 issue of Acres U.S.A.

ACRES U.S.A. Carbon farming was unknown even a few years ago, and it is still obscure for many people who are otherwise well-informed. Could you establish the basic premise for us?

ERIC TOENSMEIER. Sure. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is there because of burning fossil fuels and also because of the degradation of land. Whether it’s forests being cleared or prairie being plowed or a badly grazed pasture, when those ecosystems are degraded, carbon that was stored in soil and in biomass bonds with oxygen and heads up into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. There are practices that can bring it back. They all use photosynthesis, which takes carbon dioxide out of the air and turns it into sugars in the plant; then those sugars are converted into various other things such as lignins. Some of them end up in the plant itself, and some of them end up in the soil. Some get there quickly through root exudates, and some end up in the soil more slowly through decomposition. Some of them are off-gassed to go back up into the atmosphere. We can pull down a bunch of that excess atmospheric carbon and store it in the soil and in perennial biomass. The amount that is possible is quite hopeful and could be just about enough to do the job if it’s coupled with a drastic reduction in emissions. It’s not enough to do the job on its own.

ACRES U.S.A. If carbon storage via agriculture is essential to an overall climate strategy, how do you lay it out to a skeptic who doesn’t believe farms can play a big part?

TOENSMEIER. That’s a really important question. We’re not going to stop climate change, but we can’t get it to a manageable level without farmers, and here’s why. Even if we stopped all emissions today — all deforestation, all fossil fuel burning — there’s already too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That’s partly because carbon dioxide takes a couple decades to kick in. We’re already in for a lot more warming than we can tell from what we’ve emitted. We can pull it back down, and to do that we have to stop emissions, but we also have to sequester carbon. Neither one works on its own. There’s not enough land available for reforestation to do all the sequestration we need with land leftover for agriculture. So agriculture itself has to be part of the solution. What’s cool is that almost all of these agricultural solutions weren’t invented for climate change mitigation — they were invented because they make farms work better. They make farms more resilient. They make farms more productive. They’re good ideas anyway! There are plenty of tradeoffs and drawbacks, but as far as I can see it’s quite a good news story.

KEEP READING IN ECO FARMING DAILY BY ACRES U.S.A. MAGAZINE

Beyond Pesticides to Regeneration!

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Author: Brian Jordan

I have a confession.

Until I watched actress Kaiulani Lee kick off the Beyond Pesticides 34th National Pesticide Forum  this weekend in Portland, Maine, I had only vaguely heard of Rachel Carson, marine biologist, environmental activist and author of “The Silent Spring.”

But Lee’s keynote performance, “A Sense of Wonder,” brought Carson to life for all of us who attended this important conference. Using Carson’s own words, Lee gave voice to the struggles Carson faced—the backlash she endured from the chemical industry, and the personal sacrifices she made in order to change the conversation around how we regulate chemicals, and how as a nation we address environmental issues.

It was a lesson in where we came from and where we are today.

If Carson’s struggle in the 1950s and 1960s sounds all too familiar, it’s because we are fighting the same circular battle with today’s chemical industry and agribusiness giants—one product at a time, with a new, often worse, one always just around the corner.

This year’s Beyond Pesticides forum had something for everyone. Scientists, lawyers, lawmakers, farmers, journalists and activists came together to share notes on the state of the movement.

And they all agreed—we have a pathway to finish what Rachel Carson started.

Presenters Kristin Ohlson and Jonathan Lundgren discussed the coming shift in the way we farm. Ohlson, author of “The Soil Will Save Us,” spoke about the limitless potential of regenerative agriculture. She profiled farmers who have discovered that healthy soil isn’t just good for the environment, it’s good for business. Cultivating healthy soil creates farms that are more resistant to drought, pests and other calamities. It also bolsters long-term yields and exponentially decreases water consumption. And best of all, healthy soil has the power to sequester billions of tons of planet-warming carbon.

Lundgren, a former USDA scientist, presented pesticide research that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tried to muzzle.  But the moral of Lundgren’s presentation wasn’t about pesticides. It was about regenerative agriculture.

“Pesticides are a symptom of the problem,” Lundgren said. “And the source of that problem is a chemical farming system that relies on vulnerable monocultures that destroy the soil.”

There was no shortage of activists at the conference, all of whom were looking for ways to bring about meaningful change, either locally or on a national scale. George Leventhal, a councilman from Montgomery, Md., Montgomery County, Md., which successfully passed a widespread ban  on pesticides, shared tips on how to fight the chemical companies at a local level.

There were many other speakers who provided expert advice and shared critical updates on the movement to end pesticide use. Keep checking back at the Beyond Pesticides website, where videos of the presentations will soon be posted.

Meanwhile, my take-away from the conference? The regenerative movement has officially begun. We can win the battle against Monsanto and tackle climate change at the same time. We’ve got an endgame!

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Brian Jordan is a communications assistant with the Organic Consumers Association. 

Closing the Carbon Cycle

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Fossil fuel companies and the beef industry have the potential to slow climate change – if they collaborate, and realize the waste of oil is the manna of soil, argues filmmaker Peter Byck during a talk in Phoenix at GreenBiz 16.

 

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‘Carbon farming’ is used to restore overgrazed rangelands

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Author: Madison Dapcevich

BILLINGS, Mont. — When it comes to farming, John Brown’s approach is more sustainable to crop diversification and better provides for carbon sequestration.

“As I was holding this handful of seeds, something shifted in me. I asked myself: why am I addicted to monoculture?” says John Brown, who has been farming since the 1970s. “It’s not just about what happens to corn and soybeans, but about what happens to our body when we only eat these crops? What happens to our culture and society when we only see these crops?”

Homegrown Prosperities, a carbon sequestration initiative led by the Northern Plains Resource Council, is underway. This grassroots conservation and family agriculture group organizes Montana citizens to protect water quality, family farms and ranches, and the state’s unique quality of life. This project aims to explore how soil health is the base of ecological, social and economic well-being, while connecting and supporting producers in the forefront.

“Agriculture, as it is turning out, is one of the best ways to draw out carbon from the atmosphere and put it back in the soil where it came from, and even enhance it,” Brown says.

The process of carbon sequestration, or “carbon farming,” is a technique that restores overgrazed rangelands into fertile fields by using photosynthesis to pull in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, while releasing oxygen. This sequestration, coupled with crop diversification and green waste composting, is an innovative approach to no-till agriculture.

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