Farmers asked to cut carbon emissions

You've probably heard about carbon credits, carbon sequestering and the global push to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. It sounds like the push is getting more serious, and that farmers are not immune to the pressure.

BBC Radio’s “Farming Today” had a series last week about the U.K.’s plan to cut carbon emissions from agriculture by six per cent by 2020. The two key ways to do this, based on comments on the program, are through increased fertilizer-use efficiency in grain crops and, on the livestock side, through more efficient use of feed and by capturing the biogas output from manure. (Apparently Germany already has 4,000 anaerobic digesters to generate burnable biogas from manure.)

The challenge for farmers, as the world population continues to rise in that time, is how to increase production and reduce carbon at the same time. One thought raised in the program is that thicker, denser crops actually sequester more carbon. Could that mean that more fertilizer use could actually reduce carbon because the crops are that much thicker and suck up that much more carbon dioxide? 

Where to start?

We’ve got many unanswered questions when it comes to carbon. Farmers responding to the program noted, quite rightly, that farmers have no idea what their current carbon footprint is, so how can they tell if they’re using practices that reduce it. “What you can’t measure, you can’t manage,” said Allan Buckwell of the County Lands and Business Association. The association has a calculator on its website where farmers can enter data and then get an estimate of their farm’s carbon emissions.

But even then, farmers don’t know what practices provide the greatest carbon benefit for the least cost. Buckwell suggests that the U.K. set up model farms that test various techniques for their costs per tonne of carbon reduced. It sounds like a good idea for Canada. 

Grainews will be looking into the carbon issue in more detail this winter, digging up carbon sequestering techniques that work and keeping you up to date on policies in Canada and abroad. Let me know what questions you'd like answered.