Farming & Climate

Addressing climate change through food requires us to get back to the roots of farming.  Healthy soil creates nutritious food and climate resilience. 

How does “Industrial Agriculture” Affect the Climate? 

The vast majority of the food Americans eat comes from industrially farmed land, here and abroad. Conventional industrial farming depletes soils and is responsible for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Most farms that supply American consumers rely on pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, and tilling. Tilling releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and depletes the soil of microbial life. Without microbes and fungi to exchange nutrients with, crops require increasing amounts of synthetic fertilizer, which creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than CO2. Confined animal feeding operations are a large source of methane emissions. 

Excess tillage and chemicals threaten our food security. Depleted of life, the soil loses its structure and is less able to absorb and retain water, making it vulnerable to drought, flooding, and erosion. Since farmers began tilling the land in the Midwest 160 years ago, 57.6 billion metric tons of topsoil have eroded; at that rate of soil loss, the earth’s farmland could sustain only 60 more harvests.* 

(*Smithsonian Magazine) 

How Can Farming Benefit the Climate? 

Farmers can help draw heat-trapping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere by building healthy soils. Soil restoration is an essential part of climate change mitigation. Soils hold 5 times more carbon than the atmosphere, so even small increases in soil organic matter remove significant amounts of carbon from the air and help to cool the planet. 

How does it work? Photosynthesis! Plants use the sun’s energy to pull CO2 out of the air and transform it into the sugars they need to grow. They secrete some of those sugars and other carbon compounds through their roots to feed billions of soil microbes. In exchange, microbes mine and deliver specific nutrients and minerals that plants require. Some soil microbes feast on decomposing plants and animal waste, turning it into humus, the dark organic matter indicative of fertile soil. As soil microbes die, their remains accumulate to create more humus. Humus-rich soil draws heat-trapping carbon out of the air and puts it to work sustaining healthy, nutrient dense food crops and a vast web of life. 

In the NASA data visualization, notice that the highest emissions of CO2 in the northern hemisphere occur during spring planting, when soil is being turned over and organic matter and microorganisms exposed to the air, and the lowest levels are during high summer, when plants are performing peak photosynthesis. 

It’s the How, Not the Cow 

How can cows be good for the climate? 

Industrial livestock management is harmful to the environment, but it’s not the only option. Managed grazing where animals are on pasture their entire lives restores fertility to soil, which increases photosynthesis and draws CO2 into the ground. 

As soil becomes carbon-rich, it captures and holds more rain. This reduces flooding while replenishing dried-up rivers, helping to create a safer and more resilient climate future. Grazing animals in a way that mimics natural herd movement has even been used to reverse desertification. 

Peer-reviewed scientific studies show effective grazing management can capture, or “draw down,” 1 to 3 tons of carbon per acre each year. Properly done, grazing removes more than enough carbon from the air to compensate for an animal’s enteric (intestine-based) methane emissions. Healthy soil contains bacteria that metabolize (consume) methane. Methane from ruminant animals like cows is only an issue of concern in the context of concentrated animal feeding operations, not when livestock are living naturally on pasture, managed in ways that improve soil health and biodiversity. 

Source: Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition 

Five Guidelines for Growing Healthy Soils 

1. Keep living roots in the ground. 

Maintain living roots in soil as long as possible throughout the year. Take a walk in the spring and you will see green plants poking their way through the last of the snow. Follow the same path in late fall or early winter and you will still see green, growing plants, which is a sign of living roots. Those living plants are photosynthesizing and feeding soil biology by providing its basic food source: carbon. This biology, in turn, fuels the nutrient cycle that feeds plants. Look for crops that grow longer. Plan to plant another crop before one ends, or immediately after. Grow more perennial plants. 

2. Keep soil covered at all times. 

This is a critical step toward rebuilding soil health. Bare soil is an anomaly—nature always works to cover soil as quickly as possible. Providing a natural “coat of armor” protects soil from wind and water erosion while providing food and habitat for macro- and microorganisms. It will also prevent moisture evaporation and germination of weed seeds. 

3. Minimize disturbance. 

Limit mechanical, chemical, and physical disturbance of soil. Tillage—turning over and breaking up soil—destroys soil structure. It is constantly tearing apart the “house” that nature builds to protect the living organisms in the soil that create natural fertility. Soil structure includes aggregates and pore spaces (openings that allow water to infiltrate the soil). The result of tillage is soil erosion, the wasting of a precious natural resource. Synthetic fertilizers, herbi-cides, pesticides, and fungicides all have negative impacts on life in the soil as well. 

4. Maximize Diversity. 

Strive for diversity of both plant and animal species. Where in nature does one find monocultures? Only where humans have put them! In a natural prairie or pasture, different types of plants like grasses, forbs, legumes, and shrubs all live and thrive in harmony with each other. Think of what each of these species has to offer. Some have shallow roots, some deep, some fibrous, some tap. Some are high-carbon, some are low-carbon, some are legumes. Each of them plays a role in maintaining soil health. Diversity enhances ecosystem function. 

5. Integrate animals. 

Nature does not function without animals. Ever. It is that simple. Integrating livestock into an operation provides many benefits. The major benefit is that the grazing of plants stimulates the plants to pump more carbon into the soil. This drives nutrient cycling by feeding biology. Of course, it also has a major, positive impact on climate change by cycling more carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. And if you want a healthy, functioning ecosystem you must provide a home and habitat for not only farm animals but also pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and all of the microbiology that drive ecosystem function. 

We Need Systems Change

Agriculture is one piece of the climate solution, and it is not the only solution. We need systems change.  It is the structural systems, not individual farmers, that made modern-day conventional farming widespread and often environmentally destructive. 

The 2023 Farm Bill 

For climate farmers to thrive and for climate farming to have its greatest impact, we need systemic change. In the US, the Farm Bill will be on the table in 2023, offering an opportunity to reverse policies that are destructive to soil and climate, and to boost regenerative farming. The Farm Bill sets the priorities of the US agricultural system, often encouraging certain crops and production systems over others­­—for example, soil health-focused programs that help rebuild soils currently receive less than 1 percent of overall funding in the Farm Bill, giving farmers an incentive to keep harming the soil. In turn, the farmers and ranchers who are making the effort to build healthy soils are not supported in their work, and in fact can be discouraged from it. Renewed every 5-7 years, the 2023 Farm Bill will last through at least 2028.  All members of Congress have the opportunity to influence the development of the Farm Bill by signaling their support for key issues through marker bills. 

We need to change how we feed people. This change can come from consumer demand, but it also needs to come from changes in state and national policy priorities. Speak up for Climate Farming! Tell your representatives to replace harmful subsidies for polluting practices with support for organic no-till farming, managed grazing, and other proven methods for growing food that build soil health and cool the climate. Check out RegenerateAmerica.org, one of the groups working on the Farm Bill. Source: RegenerateAmerica.org 

“Just Transition In the Agricultural Sector” 

By Stephen Leslie, Cedar Mountain Farm 

Farmers everywhere are on the frontline of climate change. I began farming in the Upper Valley in 1996. As a dairy and vegetable farmer, I have seen my crops and livestock subject to the increasing stressors of a changing climate. We experience more extreme droughts and precipitation events and less predictable growing seasons. New insect and plant diseases are proliferating in our region. 

We can salute the current legislature for bringing forward climate initiatives such as the TCI and Vermont Green Deal—but we must point out that their focus on transportation and energy efficiency is short-sighted. For a rural state like Vermont, land management represents a huge opportunity to mitigate and heal the environmental crisis. The agricultural and forestry sectors are crucial to the solutions and must be included in any comprehensive legislation addressing climate change. 

We can improve farm income and help save the planet by leveraging the state to pay incentives to land managers who use “best practices” to sequester carbon, protect air and water quality, reduce pesticide use, and transition from fossil fuels. 

The dairy sector occupies the majority of agricultural land in the state of Vermont and is by far the most important sector in economic terms. The working landscape is also a major asset of the tourism sector—which is the leading economic driver of our state’s economy. Dairy farmers should be given viable options to diversify, reduce the number of cows and grow crops such as hemp, medicinal and culinary herbs, and commodity foods such as grain and legumes for humans instead of livestock. The aim of all these incentives should be to re-establish a regional food system. Consumers should be able to buy a full-diet of food grown within one-hundred miles of where they live—no more California lettuce coming to us on jet planes—but rather healthy organic and bio-regionally produced food—eaten with the seasons. 

Even if we were to halt all greenhouse gas emissions today the concentration of Co2 in the atmosphere will continue to rise for centuries because of how much has already been absorbed by the oceans. As we slow down emissions the oceans will release Co2 in a process of equilibration. We must halt emissions but of equal importance is the restoration of our soil reserves worldwide. The most prevalent greenhouse gas is water vapor. There is a fixed amount of water on this planet. Through 10,000 years of soil degradation we have desertified half of the planet’s terrestrial surface and hugely diminished the soil’s capacity to hold water. The only way to safely draw down and cool the planet is to re-build the soil carbon sponge. Building the sponge not only sequesters 3-10 tons of carbon per acre, it also naturally cools the environment by stabilizing the earth’s hydrologic systems by which she has maintained a livable habitat for increasingly complex life forms for one-hundred-and-thirty-million years. Building the sponge creates resilience for our food systems and also mitigates the damage of flooding and drought. It is the single most important task we can undertake to save humanity and all other species from the ravages of abrupt climate disruption. 

The USDA, Land grant colleges, and NGO’s should promote the concept of the soil carbon sponge as a pivotal component to drawdown and restoration of the Earth’s natural cooling hydrologic capacities. Teaching the theory and practice of these concepts to all land managers is crucial. 

The very best way to sequester carbon and establish food security is to promote regenerative farming practices among every society around the globe. If every individual human being, and every village, town, municipality and city on this planet were dedicated to creating more topsoil through the promotion of small-scale sustainable agriculture we could sequester all the carbon we need to cool and heal the environment, provide meaningful employment and feed all the earth’s people. 

Agriculture has been part and parcel of the destruction of the natural world—but it doesn’t have to be so. Vermonters can lead the way by embracing regenerative restorative practices. It is really important to emphasize that we aren’t just talking about farm land and wood lot. Every citizen relies on soil and so every one of us should be incentivized to become caretakers of the land—no piece of land is too small or insignificant to be worthy of reparation and restoration. We need full citizen participation to create food security and restore bio-diversity. 

Key leverage points for a Just Transition in Agriculture 

• Reward farmers for ecological services. This isn’t only cleaner air, water, and carbon sequestration in soil—the production of nutrient dense food is an ecological service. 
• Establish price parity for farm products to ensure that every farmer and farm worker can earn a living wage. 
• Institute regional supply management of farm products to keep pricing fair and to prevent industry from forcing out small producers. 

• Divert funds that the state currently pays to subsidize tourism to build worker owned milk bottling plants, artisanal value-added creameries, distilleries, hemp processing, community food processing centers, and more enterprises tied to the local food, fiber, and forest harvests. 
• Institute land reform for re-settling of climate refugees (many of whom are farmers) and to ensure young farmers have access to arable land. 
• Establish cooperative markets and food marketing hubs. 
• Establish bio-fuel farms to supply regional needs for transitioning tractors off of gas and diesel. Bio-fuel farms will serve as energy hubs for each region to supply regional farms with fuel for converted tractors. Only bio-fuels that can be grown to balance out as carbon neutral will be used.  
• Create incentives for electric tractors. Create incentives for electric tractors to be shared between farms. 

• Promote draft animal technology. Draft animal power can play a significant role again on farms, in the forest, and in local transport of goods and services.