[Southern California Permaculture] Carbon Farming Gets A Nod At Paris Climate Conferen

Mon Dec 7 18:02:03 PST 2015

Carbon Farming Gets A Nod At Paris Climate Conference

Updated December 7, 201512:03 PM ET
<http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/07/458063708/carbon-farming-gets-a-nod-at-paris-climate-conference>http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/07/458063708/carbon-farming-gets-a-nod-at-paris-climate-conference
ALASTAIR BLAND
Las Cañadas is an ecological cooperative in Veracruz, Mexico th

Las Cañadas is an ecological cooperative in 
Veracruz, Mexico that's working to sequester 
carbon and mitigate climate change while 
producing food, materials, chemicals and energy.
Courtesy of Ricardo Romero/Chelsea Green Publishing

This week, world leaders 
<http://www.npr.org/2015/12/07/458742069/talks-in-paris-to-reach-a-treaty-on-global-warming-enter-final-week>are 
hashing out a binding agreement in Paris at the 
2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference for curbing 
greenhouse gas emissions. And for the first time, 
<http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/agriculture/press-release-lpaa-focus-agriculture-at-cop21/>they've 
made the capture of carbon in soil a formal part 
of the global response to the climate crisis.

"This is a game changer because soil carbon is 
now central to how the world manages climate 
change. I am stunned," says 
<http://www.ifoam.bio/en/andre-leu>André Leu, 
president of IFOAM — Organics International, an 
organization that promotes organic agriculture and carbon farming worldwide.

Leu is referring to the United Nations Lima-Paris 
Action Agenda, a sort of side deal aimed at 
"robust global action towards low carbon and 
resilient societies." On Dec. 1, countries, 
businesses and NGOs signed on to a series of new 
commitments under the agenda, including several on agriculture.
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11951725>
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<http://www.npr.org/series/12385221/solutions>SOLUTIONS

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11951725>Iowa 
Farmers Look to Trap Carbon in Soil

Currently, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 
400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Eric 
Toensmeier, a lecturer at Yale and the author of 
<http://www.chelseagreen.com/the-carbon-farming-solution>The 
Carbon Farming Solution, a book due out in 
February, says the atmosphere's carbon dioxide 
levels must be cut to 350 parts per million or lower to curb climate change.

Toensmeier and Leu are among a growing number of 
environmental advocates who say one of the best 
opportunities for drawing carbon back to Earth is 
for farmers and other land managers to try to 
sequester more carbon in the soil.

"Reducing emissions is essential, but eventually 
it still gets us to catastrophic climate change," 
says Toensmeier, who's attending the Paris talks 
on behalf of the group 
<http://www.drawdown.org/>Project Drawdown. "The 
level of emissions in the atmosphere now is 
already past a tipping point. That means we have to sequester carbon."

The Center for Food Safety created a video in 
November explaining how soil can help solve climate change.
YouTube

Using photosynthesis, plants draw carbon from the 
air and deposit it in the soil. And farming is a 
simple way of growing crops and managing soil 
that, under the right conditions, encourages the 
buildup of carbon in the ground. In addition to 
countering global warming, carbon-rich soil can 
be more productive and hold water better than soil with lower carbon content.

There are two basic ways for farmers to capture 
it, says 
<http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/about/team/>Connor 
Stedman, an agricultural consultant in the Hudson 
Valley with the firm AppleSeed Permaculture.

"You can put carbon in soil, and you can put 
carbon in long-lived perennial plants, especially trees," says Stedman.

And you can start, according to Torri Estrada, 
managing director with the 
<http://www.carboncycle.org/>Carbon Cycle 
Institute in northern California, by disturbing the land as little as possible.

In conventional industrial agriculture, the soil 
is often tilled or plowed to disrupt weeds and 
prepare the land for planting. But turning the 
soil this way (or overgrazing animals on 
rangelands) introduces oxygen to the carbon. The 
carbon and oxygen then can bond into carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas.

As food production has intensified, between 50 
and 80 percent of the soil carbon has been lost 
around the world, 
<http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/a-savior-in-soil/>according 
to researchers at the Ohio State University's 
Carbon Management and Sequestration Center.

Gabe Brown grows oats, alfalfa, peas, clover and 
other field crops in North Dakota. He says that 
when he bought his land in 1991, his soil's 
carbon level registered at a dismal 1.9 percent 
on average. "It was a tan, lifeless powder," says 
Brown, who delivers seminars around the nation on 
carbon farming and has become a sort of guru of the movement.

But then he decided not to till or plow to boost 
carbon levels in his soil. And his efforts have 
paid off. "Now, [the soil] looks like black 
cottage cheese," he says, adding that his yields 
are as much as 25 percent greater than those of 
conventional farms nearby, and his soil is up to 6 percent carbon on average.

According to Stedman, healthy, undisturbed soil 
rich in organic matter can contain anywhere from 
8 to 20 percent carbon. In addition to minimal 
tilling and plowing, another way to sequester 
carbon in soil is to add compost. Cover crops add 
carbon, too, and also reduce erosion.

But to make a real dent in the carbon dioxide 
emissions – and climate change — with carbon 
farming, Stedman says farmers globally would have 
to deposit on average just over 25 tons of 
atmospheric carbon into each acre of the Earth's 
arable land. That could take decades. And that 
assumes carbon emissions could also be halted and 
that all farmers in the world actually 
participate. Stedman says that, realistically, 
since only some farmers will be actively trying 
to sequester carbon in coming decades, it may 
require depositing much more than 25 tons per acre.

There's another possible wrinkle in the scheme, 
says Peter Donovan, a board member of the 
<http://soilcarboncoalition.org/>Soil Carbon 
Coalition. As carbon is drawn from the atmosphere 
and into the Earth, the ocean will release some 
of its own carbon into the air, which could 
substantially offset the progress of sequestration.

Ecologist 
<http://oaec.org/about-us/staff/brock-dolman/>Brock 
Dolman agrees the task at hand is massive.

"Business as usual with conventional agriculture 
is just contributing to greenhouse gases, soil 
erosion, ocean dead zones, all of the above," 
says Dolman, co-founder of the Occidental Arts 
and Ecology Center in northern California, which 
promotes sustainable agriculture. "But to not 
move forward with carbon farming ... well, 
somebody would have to tell me what else we are going to do."

There are signs beyond the 
<http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/agriculture/press-release-lpaa-focus-agriculture-at-cop21/>Lima-Paris 
Action Agenda, announced in Paris on Dec. 1, that 
the carbon farming movement is moving forward.

The Carbon Cycle Institute is working with local 
governments to teach the basics of carbon farming 
to growers and ranchers around California.

In France, the Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood 
and Forestry has launched an international 
<http://newsroom.unfccc.int/media/408539/4-per-1000-initiative.pdf>campaign 
to increase soil carbon content.

There are 
<http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ccs/>other 
ways to sequester carbon besides agriculture and 
forestry, such as capturing emissions from power 
plants and piping the carbon to underground storage spaces.

But Estrada says doing so by farming makes the most sense.

"Photosynthesis and soil has been working for 
billions of years," he says. "It's the longest 
running [research and development] project 
around, so why not use the simple, well proven one that we know works?"

----------
Alastair Bland is a freelance writer based in San 
Francisco who covers food, agriculture and the environment.

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