In a recent blog post, the author was poking holes in the notion that carbon credit legislation will be an effective tool in the global warming equation.
One of the people responding to his post talked about a book written almost 10 years ago that laid out the argument that agriculture is potentially a massive player in the reduction of airborne carbon dioxide, seen as a major contributor to global warming.
Here’s an excerpt from his take on the role of agriculture, specifically cover croppong, will have on the CO2 levels:
The book says that if more farmers adopted mulching, no-till farming, and the use of cover crops and manure, 3,700 million acres worldwide could sequester 1 gigaton per year of CO2, roughly 12 percent of annual global emissions.
As 3,700 million acres appears to be a small percentage of the total cropland in the world, the ability of changing farm practices to reduce levels of ghg (greenhouse gases) is considerable.
Cover crops obviously have value beyond being a carbon sink, but Congress may make the use of cover crops more attractive, through incentives like tax credits. What’s the harm in that, so long as it’s revenue neutral? Cover crops invariably increase productivity by improving the quality of the soil. Even if it costs something to manage the new crop crop (both in the brainpower spent to figure it out and the actual costs of seed, herbicide, equipment), the added productivity may give you a break even or a profit. But if the government continues to reward farmers for good practices, like cover crops, that makes the decision to move to no-till and cover crops that much easier, right?
Tags: ag contributes to lowering greenhouse gases, all cover crops, annual ryegrass as a cover crop, carbon credits, carbon sequestration, crop yield, No-Till
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