Home | News | Get Involved | Building Soils | Resources | Our Team
About Carbon Sequestration
Good News in the Face of Climate Change
By Anne Bishop
“Carbon farming,” or simple land use practices that build living soils, holds significant advantages over the widespread land use practices that came into vogue in the 1950s. Unlike the lifeless, sterile dirt that results from poor conventional practices, the rich, fertile soils created by carbon farming produce higher yields and more nutritious food. And these results are achieved using less money and labor. Furthermore, these living soils retain 30% more water, thus minimizing erosion and pollution runoff, and making crops drought resistant.
But there is another advantage to carbon farming: by maximizing plant photosynthesis, these healthy soils pull large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the principle global warming gas—out of the air and store the carbon in the ground. Those black, fertile soils are black with carbon. And for every 1 ton of carbon stored in the soil, more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide have been removed from the air, reports Kristin Ohlson, award-winning science writer and author of The Soil Will Save Us (Rodale, 2014).
While there are now toxically high levels of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, carbon levels in the planet’s soils and biosphere are dangerously low. This carbon imbalance propels climate change and ocean acidification: two phenomenon that are quickly overturning the conditions within which human civilization flourished. Worldwide, soils have lost up to 80 billion tons of carbon to land misuse, according to Ohlson.
But researchers testing good soil practices at the New Mexico State University's Institute for Sustainable Agriculture have found that not only could they “grow more crops faster, better, and with less water on improved soils, but these healthy plants shuttled 72% of the CO2 they pulled from the air into the soil,” Ohlson reports. The scientists “expected the amount of CO wafting off the soil from plant processes to increase as soil life increased.” But as soil life increased, the amount of CO2 respiration decreased. “Meaning, soil carbon storage was accelerating in a nonlinear fashion: 2 + 2 was adding up to 15 or 20.” Carbon sequestration by healthy soil was advancing in leaps and bounds.
The best news of all is that this group of scientists observed 50 tons of carbon sequestration per acre in a year, removing upwards of 150 tons of CO2 from the air. And this was achieved in just two years—in an arid climate. Therefore, according to NMSU scientists, carbon farming has the potential to offset all human-caused CO2 emissions at 2014 levels “on less than 11 percent of the world’s cropland,” reports Ohlson. “Over twice that amount of land is fallow at any time worldwide.”
The New Mexico scientists' findings are not alone. From ranchers in Marin County, California, to farmers in Bahia, Brazil, and Kenya, East Africa, those who work with the land have been able to restore denuded or desertified dirt to carbon-rich fertile soil, using best practices (see Healthy Soil Dos and Don'ts under Issues tab). As Kristin Ohlson boldly asserts, the soil really can save us and faster than anyone expected.
Sierra Club California Approves Soils Committee’s Healthy Soils Resolution
Sierra Club California has approved the Soils Committee’s resolution to endorse agricultural practices that foster healthy soils and soil carbon sequestration, like those in the State of California's Healthy Soils Program.
Sierra Club California now joins the Soils Committee in supporting increased funding for California farmers and ranchers to implement practices that build soil health and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Improved soil health is key to helping California meet the target reductions of AB32 to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 40% by 2040, as well as improving the state’s water quality and security, food production and quality, biological diversity and wildlife habitat, and the quality of life of our farmers and ranchers.
A healthy soil ecosystem is also more likely to be resilient to weather extremes due to climate change, including fluctuating temperatures, wind, rain and floods, all of which are occurring at a greater intensity and frequency as the planet’s temperature continues to rise. Practices that build soil organic matter and soil microbial life—such as reduced or no tillage, compost and cover crops, and hedgerows, are promoted in place of practices that destroy soil health—such as tillage, exposed soil, use of commercial fertilizers, and use of pesticides.
Healthy soils store carbon and water, while unhealthy soils release carbon and water back into the atmosphere. Graphic by Kiss the Ground.
Soils Committee Shares Importance of Healthy Soil at San Jose's Environmental Sustainability Plan Meeting
On 21 August 2017, Elizabeth Guimarin, soil scientist and adviser to the Soils Committee, spoke out on the many benefits of healthy soil and the contributions it can make toward helping the City of San Jose achieve sustainability. Not only does healthy soil hold more water and protect nearby water systems, it stores more carbon, contributes to a more resilient climate, and creates a healthier outdoors for community members.
TomKat Ranch: The Frontier of Regenerative Grazing
By Anne Stauffer and Anne Bishop
June 2017
Members of the Loma Prieta Chapter Soils Committee recently toured Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor’s TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California. The ranch, which focuses on sustainable food systems, sits on 1,800 acres of coastal grassland, forest, and riparian habitat. Staffed by a well-trained team of ranch hands, student interns, soil biologists and other scientists, TomKat is a living laboratory and educational hub for agricultural practices that promise to lessen or help reverse climate change.
TomKat’s LeftCoast Grassfed operation, for example, oversees the grazing of 50 to 100 cattle over some 25 pasture paddocks. Grazing is carefully managed so pasture is neither over- nor under-grazed. Anecdotal evidence and scientific studies indicate that such “managed” or “regenerative grazing,” especially of the deep-rooted perennial grasses favored at TomKat, can maximize soil carbon sequestration—fast becoming a key focus in efforts to lessen or reverse climate change. Those working at the ranch feel that “regenerative grazing is the frontier in soil science.’’
For now, the jury is out on how much soil carbon can be boosted by managed grazing. Because healthier soils store carbon at far higher rates, scientists at TomKat are routinely testing their paddock soils for health and carbon. Four factors are tested to map change over time: soil water infiltration, soil compaction, soil carbon levels, and the presence of a certain chemical that indicates the level of biological activity in the soil.
Meanwhile, the land’s natural springs, ground wells, and streams are carefully protected from the cattle, which are mostly watered using portable troughs. And the managed grazing is driving a revival of the area’s native oatgrass—a long-lived perennial bunchgrass that sends roots down a full six feet. Oatgrass is also a prized habitat for Grasshopper Sparrows, a species of special concern. Dung beetles—known for their ability to roll, bury, and decompose cow dung—are also starting to thrive. The beetles’ population climbed after ranch managers stopped using antibiotics and de‑wormers on the cattle.
LeftCoast Grassfed has added diversity to their cattle herd as well. Faced with cattle predators, the ranch recently added a few protective horn breed cattle to their existing herd of Angus Herefords. This successful change mirrors TomKat’s decision to “manage for what you want rather than against what you don’t want.”
While there are many stories one can share about visiting TomKat Ranch, it is clear the careful, diligent work being done there has already improved the lives of many—from the ranch hands and interns who keep the business alive to the millions of insects, birds, and mammals feeding themselves and others. The staff at TomKat is also adding to the science on soil carbon storage, knowledge that can be used to advance solutions to lessen or help reverse climate change.
The Loma Prieta Chapter will present Tom and Kat with its first Sustainability Champions Award to honor their extraordinary leadership in promoting ecological restoration and balance through the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation. You are invited to join the festivities at the 2017 Guardians of Nature Benefit Party, Friday, Oct. 27th, at Quinlan Community Center in Cupertino.
TomKat Ranch sells its grassfed meat in Pescadero, Santa Cruz, and downtown Palo Alto. Find more information here.
To learn more about the Soils Committee, contact Anne Stauffer at ib_annie@yahoo.com.
California's Healthy Soils Initiative
In 2016, California approved the Healthy Soils Initiative. The Healthy Soils Initiative provides funding for farmers and ranchers to build healthy soils on California’s farm and ranchlands. The program funds incentive and demonstration projects that will increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve water retention, plant health and production, biodiversity and wildlife, air and water quality, and reduce erosion. To learn about the grant application process and implementation, visit https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/oefi/healthysoils/.
4 Per 1000 Initiative
The “Soils for Food Security and Climate Initiative (4 per 1000)” was adopted at the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015. The initiative, which was launched by France, proposes to increase global carbon sequestration in soil by 0.4% per year, which is equivalent to 3.5 Gt carbon dixoide/year, using regenerative farming practices (agroecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, landscape management, etc.). http://4p1000.org/understand
In 2016, the 4 per 1000 initiative to increase global carbon sequestration continued as a main topic of discussion at the Marrakech climate change conference. http://agriculture.gouv.fr/agriculture-takes-center-stage-cop22-begins-morocco
2015 “Year of the Soil”
The United Nations designated 2015 as the “International Year of the Soil” as a way to elevate the importance of soil as a primary resource in food production, water storage and conservation, forests, and carbon sequestration. http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/en/
Articles
Why Carbon Farm? Good News in the Face of Climate Change
By Anne Bishop
“Carbon farming,” or simple land use practices that build living soils, holds significant advantages over the widespread land use practices that came into vogue in the 1950s. Unlike the lifeless, sterile dirt that results from poor conventional practices, the rich, fertile soils created by carbon farming produce higher yields and more nutritious food. And these results are achieved using less money and labor. Furthermore, these living soils retain 30% more water, thus minimizing erosion and pollution runoff, and making crops drought resistant.
But there is another advantage to carbon farming: by maximizing plant photosynthesis, these healthy soils pull large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the principle global warming gas—out of the air and store the carbon in the ground. Those black, fertile soils are black with carbon. And for every 1 ton of carbon stored in the soil, more than 3 tons of carbon dioxide have been removed from the air, reports Kristin Ohlson, award-winning science writer and author of The Soil Will Save Us (Rodale, 2014).
While there are now toxically high levels of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, carbon levels in the planet’s soils and biosphere are dangerously low. This carbon imbalance propels climate change and ocean acidification: two phenomena that are quickly overturning the conditions within which human civilization flourished. Worldwide, soils have lost up to 80 billion tons of carbon to land misuse, according to Ohlson.
But researchers testing good soil practices at the New Mexico State University's Institute for Sustainable Agriculture have found that not only could they “grow more crops faster, better, and with less water on improved soils, but these healthy plants shuttled 72% of the CO2 they pulled from the air into the soil,” Ohlson reports. The scientists “expected the amount of CO2 wafting off the soil from plant processes to increase as soil life increased.” But as soil life increased, the amount of CO2 respiration decreased. “Meaning, soil carbon storage was accelerating in a nonlinear fashion: 2 + 2 was adding up to 15 or 20.” Carbon sequestration by healthy soil was advancing in leaps and bounds.
The best news of all is that this group of scientists observed 50 tons of carbon sequestration per acre in a year, removing upwards of 150 tons of CO2 from the air. And this was achieved in just two years—in an arid climate. Therefore, according to NMSU scientists, carbon farming has the potential to offset all human-caused CO2 emissions at 2014 levels “on less than 11 percent of the world’s cropland,” reports Ohlson. “Over twice that amount of land is fallow at any time worldwide.”
The New Mexico scientists' findings are not alone. From ranchers in Marin County, California, to farmers in Bahia, Brazil, and Kenya, East Africa, those who work with the land have been able to restore denuded or desertified dirt to carbon-rich fertile soil, using best practices (see Healthy Soil Dos and Don'ts under Issues tab). As Kristin Ohlson boldly asserts, the soil really can save us and faster than anyone expected.
A Dirty Little Secret—Compost Can Help Save the Planet
By Bill Buchholz
Published in the Loma Prietan on November 21, 2015
When looking for ways to counteract climate change, one solution lies under our feet. According to world-renowned soils scientist Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University, a mere 2% increase in the carbon content of the planet’s soil could offset 100% of all greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere! In other words, put CO2 back into the ground by encouraging nature and plants to do their job. One ton of carbon stored in the soil is equivalent to more than 3 tons of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.
Recent research by the Marin Carbon Project, which focused on ranching practices, showed that compost made from ordinary yard clippings, household food scraps, and dairy manure could rejuvenate worn out soil, allowing it to rapidly absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. They calculated that 1/2 inch of compost applied over just 5% of the State’s grazing lands could capture a year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from California’s farm and forestry industries. The organic matter from a one-time application of compost jump-started a positive feedback loop in the soil that lasted for over six years, and may last for several decades.
This research was so compelling that the State of California recently approved a protocol to allow ranchers to sell carbon credits under California’s cap-and-trade system. The American Carbon Registry, an organization that certifies how carbon credits are measured, in October 2014, approved one for applying compost to rangeland. For the first time, the State of California recognizes that carbon sequestration in the soil is an effective strategy for mitigating climate change!
The implications are just beginning to be understood. The Sierra Club, in February, approved a new Agriculture and Food policy that supports healthy soil, and in May the Loma Prieta Chapter formed a Soils Committee to promote carbon sequestration in soil. The city of San Francisco has recently calculated that they can offset 100% of all their GHG emissions by making compost from the yard waste they collect, and spreading it on city land.
The message is becoming clear—whether it’s ranches, farms, forests, or your own backyard: put compost on top of soil to stimulate plant growth and attract the soil organisms that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and store it in the ground. For even better results, cover the compost with a layer of mulch. An old adage, “Feed the soil, not the plant” is just as important today as it was centuries ago. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Civilization itself rests upon the soil.”
Sierra Club Debuts at Soil Not Oil International Conference:
Club Members Join Other Leaders to Promote Carbon Sequestration in the Soil
Did you know that what you eat has a big impact on climate change? New research shows that farming practices that protect and conserve the soil, like no-till farming and raising grass-finished beef, can keep soils healthy and greatly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide lost to the air. This win-win approach is one step beyond Organic—it’s called Regenerative Agriculture.
For two days over Labor Day weekend, members of the Loma Prieta Chapter Soils Committee joined members of the California Stop Clearcutting Campaign and the San Francisco Bay Chapter to represent the Sierra Club at the Soil Not Oil International Conference in Richmond, California. The conference focused attention on the ground beneath our feet, asking: how do we care for and manage forest, agricultural, and ranchland soils sustainably? Our group gave a presentation on the Club’s Stop Clearcutting California Campaign, staffed a table of handout materials, heard presentations by national and international leaders on healthy farming and ranching practices, and made valuable contacts with other groups.
The takeaway message from the conference was that we can solve the climate crisis by working together and implementing a few simple changes in how we think about and work with soil—in in particular, agricultural soil. (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that over one-third of all GHG emissions are due to agriculture.)
Our ancestors knew that healthy soil was the basis of life. The word Adam comes from the Hebrew word Adama which means soil, and Eve means life. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of life coming from the soil. At the conference, world-renowned soil scientist Dr. Rattan Lal, Professor at Ohio State University and Dr. Vandana Shiva, activist and author of the 2008 book, Soil Not Oil, joined dozens of other presenters in promoting carbon sequestration in the soil as the 21st-century way to build healthy, living soil.
Regenerative Agriculture, a subset of organic agriculture that focuses on building healthy soil, helps achieve many goals. Healthy soils reduce carbon dioxide levels in the air, grow more nutritious crops, produce higher crop yields, store more water, reduce the need for pesticide use, help reverse desertification, and support a food system that is more resilient in the face of weather extremes. Transitioning to regenerative agriculture means shifting away from current destructive farming practices and toward organic and regenerative land management practices. A powerful four-minute video presentation by the California-based Kiss The Ground Foundation summarizes the problem and solution. See “The Soil Story”.
Two key strategies for regenerative agriculture and regenerative grazing are minimizing tillage (farming without tillage or plowing) and grazing cattle on grass rather than grain. One of the most informative presentations was entitled “Soil is Life, Tillage is Death: A Future with No-Till Agriculture” by Paul Kaiser of Singing Frogs Farm in Sebastopol, CA. Their research found that while organic farming is a step in the right direction and lessens soil degradation, it does not dramatically improve soil health, because tilling not only releases large amounts of carbon into the air, but also kills most of the life in healthy soil. Not tilling the soil (no-till farming) brings soil organic matter back up to healthy levels. After just 5 years, their organic no-till system of growing crops brought soil organic matter from 2.4% up to 7–9% (tested to a depth of 12 inches) - back to where it was before conventional agriculture and tillage destroyed it.
The answer is clear: avoid tilling soil. Besides sequestering huge amounts of carbon in the soil, organic no-till farming increases crop productivity, decreases water use, increases crop resilience to weather extremes, and increases crop resistance to pests, weeds and disease. Organic no-till agriculture is a win-win solution to climate change.