If applied on a large scale, carbon farming could mean that the food system can actually produce more to feed the planet, while causing less pollution and boosting the Earth’s ability to remove emissions from the atmosphere. That’s why many governments are now promoting it as part of their climate action plans.
The EU, for example, has included carbon farming within its European Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy. Within the plan, the European Commission will launch initiatives to help land managers and farmers shift towards these climate-friendly farming practices, as well as a regulatory framework to properly monitor and track how much carbon is being stored in carbon farms.
Australia has also promoted carbon farming through its Carbon Farming Initiative, a voluntary offsetting scheme that allows farmers to earn carbon credits by storing carbon and reducing emissions on land. These credits can then be sold to other businesses or individuals who wish to offset their own emissions, providing a financial incentive for the agricultural sector to move towards more sustainable practices.
Now, scientists are clear that while carbon farming is a good thing for the planet, it cannot be seen as the solution to fight climate change. Rather, it must be seen as one of the many measures that the world must use to bring down its emissions.
There’s a danger to promoting carbon farming through carbon credits, for example, with large companies often using these offsetting credits as a way to achieve “net-zero” without actually having to slash emissions from their own operations. It’s a warning that environmental NGOs like Greenpeace have made, with the organisation’s executive director Jennifer Morgan stating that there is “no time left for offsets” in a recent conference.
Greenpeace and other environmental NGOs have been critical of the disproportionate focus on offsetting programs, saying that these plans often assume that the impact of offsetting can be realised immediately, when in reality, it could take many years for the soil to be replenished to its full carbon storage potential.
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Gabe Brown - The five principles of soil health are:
- Limited disturbance. Limit mechanical, chemical, and physical disturbance of soil. Tillage destroys soil structure.It is constantly tearing apart the “house” that nature builds to protect the living organisms in the soil that create natural soil fertility. Soil structure includes aggregates and pore spaces (openings that allow water to infiltrate the soil). The result of tillage is soil erosion, the wasting of a precious natural resource. Synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides all have negative impacts on life in the soil as well.
- Armor. Keep soil covered at all times. This is a critical step toward rebuilding soil health. Bare soil is an anomaly—nature always works to cover soil. Providing a natural “coat of armor” protects soil from wind and water erosion while providing food and habitat for macro- and microorganisms. It will also prevent moisture evaporation and germination of weed seeds.
- Diversity. Strive for diversity of both plant and animal species. Where in nature does one find monocultures? Only where humans have put them! When I look out over a stretch of native prairie, one of the first things I notice is the incredible diversity. Grasses, forbs, legumes, and shrubs all live and thrive in harmony with each other. Think of what each of these species has to offer. Some have shallow roots, some deep, some fibrous, some tap. Some are high-carbon, some are low-carbon, some are legumes. Each of them plays a role in maintaining soil health. Diversity enhances ecosystem function.
- Living roots. Maintain a living root in soil as long as possible throughout the year. Take a walk in the spring and you will see green plants poking their way through the last of the snow. Follow the same path in late fall or early winter and you will still see green, growing plants, which is a sign of living roots. Those living roots are feeding soil biology by providing its basic food source: carbon. This biology, in turn, fuels the nutrient cycle that feeds plants. Where I live in central North Dakota, we typically get our last spring frost around mid-May and our first fall frost around mid-September. I used to think those 120 days were my whole growing season. How wrong I was. We now plant fall-seeded biennials that continue growing into early winter and break dormancy earlier in the spring, thus feeding soil organisms at a time when the cropland used to lie idle.
- Integrated animals. Nature does not function without animals. It is that simple. Integrating livestock onto an operation provides many benefits. The major benefit is that the grazing of plants stimulates the plants to pump more carbon into the soil. This drives nutrient cycling by feeding biology. Of course, it also has a major, positive impact on climate change by cycling more carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. And if you want a healthy, functioning ecosystem on your farm or ranch, you must provide a home and habitat for not only farm animals but also pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and all of the microbiology that drive ecosystem function.
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