White Paper States 100% of World’s CO2 Emissions Could be Sequestered
June 9, 2014 – The Rodale Institute, a “get our hands dirty” agricultural research organization, has issued a white paper detailing their very credible plan of using what they call “Regenerative Organic Agriculture” to counteract the world’s yearly carbon output. It is very complex, but basically by using “no tillage crops” means the soil is not turned and so the carbon remains in the soil and is not released into the air. In addition crop rotation and other methods are used to build up the soil over years to avoid “soil depletion”. The Rodale Institute study also shows that organic farming uses less energy, water and other resources resulting in less carbon being created by the agricultural industry.
The one issue that the organic farming community is still stumbling over is the cow manure fertilizer issue. In order to be “organic”, a farmer must not use chemical fertilizer and so most use cow manure. The problem is cows are horrible for the environment from all the methane they release and methane warms the world 20 times faster than CO2! In fact, a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization suggests the world’s cattle contributes more to greenhouse gases (methane, ammonia, etc.) than all the cars planes and all other forms of human transport combined. Plus you throw in the land, food and water to raise all those cows so we can scoop up their poop it almost completely negates all the CO2 sequestered and good work that this Regenerative Organic Agriculture would do. Someone needs to solve that issue if we ever want to farm organically worldwide. Comments? Check out our JTMP Facebook Page. (photo credits – Sign: Christopher Thomas/CC – Hand/soil: Rodale Institute)
Read more about “Regenerative Organic Agriculture” on the Rodale Institute’s Website here.
