Bill,
I couldn't agree more. I have been warning farmers and farm consultants groups
for several years now -- and more so since Kyoto -- to get ready to play this
carbon balance role. My experience has been that even the hard-bitten
ag-chemical salespeople can see the logic and importance of soil organic matter
once it has been pointed out to them. The nice thing is that increasing SOM is
something we would generally want do anyway. With nations and corporations soon
to be able to buy and sell C emission "rights" , just ask yourself which is the
more politically palatable course of action: pass legislation demands that
citizens drive fewer miles in smaller cars, or legislation that rewards farmers
for switching to pastures and cover crops and less tillage, etc.?
Ray Weil
Bill Liebhardt wrote:
> I find the idea of carbon credits to be a very interesting issue and I think
> it could be very useful in a number of ways. If we create policy to
> increase the carbon in the soil there could be an increase in practices that
> have the potential to move the agenda forward with respect to sustainable
> agriculture. No till is certainly one example. Sound crop rotations would
> also fit in that scenario and in general anything that results in better
> soil organic matter management would be plus.
>
> Another example would be pasture based systems particularly for ruminants
> like dairy and beef cattle. In a chapter in the book, THE DAIRY DEBATE, Ed
> Rayburn of West Virginia University has a section that deals with that
> question and I quote. "Another benefit that pastures provide is that
> pastured soils accumulate organic matter and are a sink for carbon dioxide
> that would otherwise enter the atmosphere. In New York, pasture soil
> samples average 7.2 percent organic matter. Many of our cropped soils will
> average only half this, or 3.6 percent organic matter. This 3.6 percent
> difference is the equivalent of 20,000 pounds of organic matter or 11,765
> pounds of carbon contained in one acre of soil. From this we can calculate
> the amount of carbon dioxide that could be tied up in pasture soils. Given
> an organic matter carbon ratio of 1.7:1 and carbon dioxide containing 27.3
> percent carbon, 43,095 pounds of carbon dioxide could be tied up per acre of
> land converted to pasture."
>
> Think of all the dairy animals that are in confinement and that could be on
> pasture and the amount of land in grain production that could be converted
> to pasture. Think of all the feed lot beef that could be fed on pasture if
> our culture could learn to eat that, or to put more of the weight on with
> pasture It would also have a remarkable effect on our manure management and
> it could help revitalize rural communities and the life style of the people
> in dairy and beef production. It would reduce soil erosion, improve water
> and air quality and reduce the use of fuel, fertilizers and pesticides. I
> know this is dangerous and subversive stuff because it would reverse the
> power flow away from the corporations that now control things in our sector
> and would bring more of it back to farmers. It would tend to decentralize
> decision making to people who manage farms instead of concentrating it in
> corporate headquarters.
>
> I am sure we do not want to do that so maybe the whole idea is stupid.
>
> Bill
>
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> * University of California, Davis CA 95616 *
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