Can agriculture help mitigate climate change? Could it even help to reverse climate change? According to data collected in Project Drawdown, food, agriculture and land use contribute 24 percent of human-created greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. So if agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gasses, how could it possibly be a key player in saving our planet? The answer lies in some of the most exciting developments taking place in our lifetime. Scientists, ranchers and farmers around the world are discovering new technologies and solutions that can actually take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil, where it belongs. Agriculture, which exists in every country in the world, is a system large enough to reverse climate change if regenerative farming was practiced worldwide. That’s a big “if,” and time is running out. It is therefore so important to educate ourselves on the innovative, planet-saving solutions happening in the world of agriculture.
We have known for some time that we must reduce emissions to slow climate change. But if we hope to reverse climate change, it is now also critical to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Globally, soils have the potential to store much more carbon than is stored in the atmosphere. Using the right management practices globally, we can remove 2 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil, where it increases fertility, productivity, soil stability and water-holding capacity. All of that contributes to the productivity and sustainability of working lands.
Marin agriculture is leading the way with exciting discoveries in carbon sequestering. The Marin Carbon Project has been investigating ways in which we can increase carbon storage in soil through management practices. Their data shows that a thin application of compost can increase the rate at which plants grow. When plants grow more, they bring more of that carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and inject it into the soil. Compost is great because it reduces emissions, takes organic matter out of landfills or slurry ponds where it would emit greenhouse gasses, and creates a slow-release fertilizer that helps plants. And then it increases carbon storage in soils.
Ranchers and farmers have known for a very long time that increasing the carbon content of soils is beneficial to their goal of growing more food crops or animals. And they now know that agriculture can be a solution instead of a problem. One planet-friendly farming technique being used by some of our local ranchers is red algae feed. Our own Straus Family Creamery, whose home ranch is in Marshall, made headlines last fall after receiving approval from regulatory agencies to conduct a trial of a new seaweed-derived feed additive called Brominata.
Brominata is made of a red seaweed and is one of a class of feed additives that, when given to dairy cows, helps to reduce the amount of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—that cows release when they burp. One cow belches out 220 pounds of enteric methane each year, the greenhouse-gas equivalent of burning over 900 gallons of gasoline.
The addition of seaweed to the cows’ diets on the Straus dairy has proved effective, showing an average 52 percent reduction in enteric methane emissions, with one cow’s emissions reduction as high as 92 percent.
A methane digester being used by some of our local ranchers is another new technology in the agricultural world. The exciting thing about methane digesters is that they create a double-carbon emission reduction. On the one hand, they capture methane emissions from manure on farms that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere; on the other hand, they produce electricity, which replaces fossil fuels. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has jumped onboard with this effective methane-reduction technology and is awarding competitive grants to California dairy operations for the implementation of methane digesters.
Water conservation and reuse is also becoming commonplace on our local farms and ranches. Water conservation is an important climate mitigation strategy, because it takes a lot of electricity to produce and distribute potable water. Every drop of water that farmers and ranchers conserve or reuse reduces the carbon footprint of their operations.
We need to start promoting these kinds of management practices out on our working lands—including our parklands—as fast as we can. The Marin Carbon Project, the Marin Resource Conservation District, Point Blue and the Marin Agricultural Land Trust have done much work in partnering with local ranchers and farmers in the practices of carbon farming, regenerative farming, methane reduction and habitat restoration. We are very fortunate to be living here in Marin County alongside these innovative farmers, ranchers and local organizations.
Trinka Marris is a certified naturalist and member of West Marin Climate Action. She has lived in West Marin for 31 years. Eleanore Despina is the co-founder of West Marin Climate Action, a former board member of Marin Organic and a resident of West Marin for 35 years.