Carbon Farming: The solution to Climate Change lies in your Soil

Agriculture is the ONE sector that has the ability to transform from a net emitter of CO₂ to a net sequesterer of CO₂ – there is no other human managed realm with this potential

Carbon constantly cycles through five pools on Planet Earth. Light energy coming from our sun functions as the fuel for the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is a critical natural process that moves carbon through our atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere, lithosphere, and oceans.

Human activity has tipped the balance of the carbon cycle through extracting enormous quantities of deeply sequestered fossil carbon as fossil fuels. These dense forms of carbon, when burned, release massive amounts of energy and carbon dioxide.

More carbon dioxide is now being released than the earth’s land-based plant life and oceans can naturally reabsorb. The excess carbon dioxide has formed a blanket in our atmosphere – trapping the sun’s heat and changing our climate, as seen in shifts in our earth’s jet stream, ocean currents, and air temperature. Rainfall patterns are changing and glaciers (water storage for many communities) are melting quickly

.We have an opportunity to restore balance within the carbon cycle in a way that will ameliorate climate change, build resilience to drought and increase our agricultural productivity naturally. This natural solution is called Carbon Farming.

Why Carbon Farming?

Land management is among the largest contributors to climate change. Agriculture is the ONE sector that has the ability to transform from a net emitter of CO₂ to a net sequesterer of CO₂ – there is no other human managed realm with this potential.

Common agricultural practices, including driving a tractor, tilling the soil, over-grazing, using fossil fuel based fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides result in significant carbon dioxide release. Alternatively, carbon can be stored long term (decades to centuries or more) beneficially in soils in a process called soil carbon sequestration.

Carbon Farming involves implementing practices that are known to improve the rate at which CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material and/or soil organic matter. Carbon farming is successful when carbon gains resulting from enhanced land management and/or conservation practices exceed carbon losses.

Carbon Farming practices

Recent studies demonstrate the efficacy of several carbon-beneficial agricultural practices in increasing soil carbon sequestration.  Compost use has been shown to increase the amount of carbon stored in both grassland and cropland soils and has important co-benefits, such as increased primary productivity and water-holding capacity.

Restoration of riparian areas on working lands has the capacity to sequester significant amounts of carbon. There are at least thirty-two on-farm Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) conservation practices that are known to improve soil health and sequester carbon, while producing important co-benefits: increased water retention, hydrological function, biodiversity, and resilience.

Carbon Farming implementation

California-based Carbon Cycle Institute has developed a model framework for land management that emphasises carbon as the organising principle. Land management within this framework leads to enhanced rates of carbon capture, increases the provision of important ecosystem services (especially water), and mitigates climate change.

The framework relies on sound policies, public-private partnerships, quantification methodologies and innovative financing mechanisms that ultimately empower local organisations to efficiently implement on-the-ground, science-based solutions. Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs) are an essential component of this framework. RCDs act as hubs that foster local partnerships to develop and implement carbon farming plans and practices in their districts,

Several RCDs across California are building local partnerships, creating Carbon Farm Plans and engaging producers in carbon farming. it is critical to strengthen the capacity of RCDs and local agricultural support organisations to scale carbon farming to achieve measurable carbon capture, and address climate change and agricultural resilience, through both mitigation and adaptation.

Carbon credits

Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) allows farmers and land managers to earn carbon credits by storing carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the land. These credits can then be sold to people and businesses wishing to offset their emissions. The CFI also helps rural communities and the environment by encouraging sustainable farming and providing a source of funding for landscape restoration projects.

Carbon credits generated under the CFI represent reductions in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through:

• increasing the amount of carbon stored in soil or trees, for example by growing a forest or reducing tillage on a farm in a way that increases soil carbon; or
• reducing or avoiding emissions, for example through the capture and destruction of methane emissions from landfill or livestock manure.

Source: carboncycle.org; fao.org

Also read: Chipotle sets science based Climate goals to reduce Carbon Emissions 50% by 2030