{"id":1495243,"date":"2024-02-12T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=629511"},"modified":"2024-02-12T09:45:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:45:00","slug":"how-much-carbon-can-farmers-store-in-their-soil-nobodys-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/02\/12\/how-much-carbon-can-farmers-store-in-their-soil-nobodys-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"How much carbon can farmers store in their soil? Nobody\u2019s sure."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Dirt, it turns out, isn\u2019t just worm poop. It\u2019s also a humongous receptacle of carbon, some 2.5 trillion tons of it \u2014 three times more than all the carbon in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s why if you ask a climate wonk about the U.S. farm bill \u2014 the broad, trillion-dollar spending package Congress is supposed to pass this year (after failing to do so last year) \u2014 they\u2019ll probably tell you something about the stuff beneath your feet. The bill to fund agricultural and food programs could put a dent in the country\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, some environmental advocates say, if it does one thing in particular: Help farmers store carbon in their soil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is, no one really knows how much carbon farmers can store in their soil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a ton of research that\u2019s needed,\u201d said Cristel Zoebisch, who analyzes federal agriculture policy at Carbon180, a nonprofit that promotes carbon removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Farmers and ranchers interact with carbon more than you might think. Draining a bog to plant rows of soybeans, for example, unleashes a lot of carbon into the air, while planting rows of shrubs and trees on a farm \u2014 a practice called alley cropping \u2014 does just the opposite, pulling the element out of the air and putting it into the earth. If America\u2019s growers and herders made sure the carbon on their land stayed underneath their crops and their cows\u2019 hooves, then some scientists say the planet would warm quite a bit less. After all, agriculture accounts for some 10 percent of the United States\u2019 greenhouse gas emissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really good at producing a lot of corn, a lot of soybeans, a lot of agricultural commodities,\u201d Zoebisch said, but farmers\u2019 gains in productivity have come at the expense of soil carbon. \u201cThat\u2019s something we can start to fix in the farm bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more than a year, climate advocates have been eyeing the bill as an opportunity to increase funding and training for farmers who want to adopt \u201cclimate-smart\u201d practices. According to the Department of Agriculture, that label can apply to a range of methods, such as planting cover crops like rye or clover after a harvest or limiting how much a field gets tilled. Corn farmers can be carbon farmers, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But experts say the reality is a bit more opaque. There\u2019s still a lot that scientists don\u2019t know about how dirt works, and they disagree about the amount of carbon that farmers can realistically remove from the air and lock up in their fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zoebisch and other advocates say that for the farm bill to be a true success, it\u2019ll have to go even further than incentivizing carbon farming. Congress also, they say, should fund researchers to verify that those practices are, in fact, removing carbon from the atmosphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n