Farmers and Ranchers Hold the Key to a Major Climate Change Solution
When the words “agriculture” and “climate change” are said together, people usually are talking about the emissions produced by cattle, or how agriculture contributes to land degradation and water pollution.
Agriculture gets a bad rap in mainstream media, especially when talking about its effect on climate change. It is much less often that people talk about the effects climate change will have on our food production system.
The truth is, agriculture is our entire food production system, and with the global human population growing, we are in desperate need of producing enough nutritionally adequate food to feed the world.
Extreme weather events, droughts, wildfires, and other results of climate change will harm our agriculture system by destroying crops, flooding, eroding soil and burning land. The food production system that is so often criticized for its role in climate change is the industry most affected by the natural disasters to come.
Agriculture production actually holds a key solution to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere — healthy soil. The soil on farms and ranches have the potential to store more carbon dioxide in the ground. Carbon sequestering — removing carbon from the atmosphere — is one of the things we have to do to reduce the effects of climate change.
According to Rattan Lal, director of Ohio State University’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, soils across the globe have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their original carbon content due to agricultural cultivation. Unfortunately, many early pioneers in the U.S. used unsustainable farming practices that are still affecting much of the farming land today.
Modern farmers understand the importance of maintaining healthy soil, because their livelihood depends on it. Many organizations around the world have made a commitment to helping farmers and ranchers implement soil management practices by increasing research, developing tools for monitoring soil health, and providing government funding.
Scientists at the UC Davis Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility have been studying how composting and cover crops can increase soil’s carbon storing capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
According to UC Davis, compost from food waste, spoiled crops, animal manure, and rotten hay, alfalfa and other animal feeds can be spread on farming and grazing lands to put carbon back into the soil. This feeds the microbes that live in the soil and encourages healthy soil. Healthier soil can produce more crops, store more water and prevent erosion.
“One reason we keep losing organic matter from soils is that our focus is on feeding the plant, and we forget the needs of others who provide important services in soil like building organic carbon,” said senior author Kate Scow, director of the UC Davis Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility. “We need to feed the soil, too”.
If more farmers and ranchers around the world spread compost and cover crops over farming and grazing land, this could allow for significant carbon storage, as well as better food productivity and healthier land.
Other ways the agriculture industry can provide climate change solutions includes increasing wind and solar energy on farms and ranches, as well as finding more efficient ways to utilize land and increase biodiversity among crops and native plants.
A Fort Collins solar company, Solaris Energy, got creative with incorporating renewable energy and efficient land usage. The Solinator Garden they developed with Namaste Solar is a solar energy production facility that uses the space around the solar panels to grow native wildflowers, which supports healthy bee populations. This project allows the land to be multi-purposed by providing renewable energy, protecting bee populations, and producing local honey.
This is just one example of how agriculture can incorporate new and innovative ways to sustainably and efficiently utilize land. These types of projects, in addition to focusing on restoring soil health, are necessary to combat climate change.
While it may be tempting to blame the agriculture system for environmental problems, it is important to remember that climate change will hit farmers the hardest, and our entire food production system relies on them.
Agriculture systems can play a key role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Farmers and ranchers must be part of the fight to combat climate change, and soil is the most valuable tool they have to do so.
