Guide Announced on Greenhouse Gas 'Offsets' in Farming, Forestry

 

 The first how-to manual for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States through changes in land use and farming practices, and turning those reductions into verifiable credits for trading in carbon markets, is about to hit bookshelves.

 

 

 Duke University Press will publish Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy: How to Create and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets in June. The book is a technical guide for farmers, foresters, traders and investors. A preview of the guide is available here.

 

 Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions developed the guide in collaboration with the nonprofit advocacy group Environmental Defense, with input from scientists at Texas A&M, Colorado  State, Rice, Princeton, Kansas State and Brown universities. The guide's editors discussed the book's recommendations in a Thursday, May 17, teleconference with land managers.

 

 

 The guide explains how farmers and foresters can convert their land's carbon dioxide storage capacity, and reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, into revenue-generating "offsets" that can be bought and sold in future carbon markets. Lawmakers at the federal and state levels are paying increased attention to the role of such offsets as legislation to reduce U.S.greenhouse gas emissions is being developed.

 

 

 "We know land-use practices can give us more options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years and flexibility for companies adjusting to a U.S. carbon cap once it is enacted," said Nicholas Institute Director Tim Profeta. "But farmers and foresters have needed specific guidance, and lawmakers need to know that the reductions can be verified. This book gives us that information and assurance."

 

 

 A number of agricultural groups are realizing the potential for new revenue streams through greenhouse gas-sequestering alterations to farming practices, such as "no till" farming where soils are not turned up after every season and manure-management practices that capture methane and use it as an energy source.

 

 "This is a comprehensive road map that paves the way for agriculture as a verifiable, measurable carbon sink," said Dick Wittman, a member of the Agricultural Carbon Market Working Group and former president of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association.

 

 "Recent studies by Kansas  State University and others have indicated that carbon could be an $8 billion market for agriculture," Wittman said. "This document proves that specific agricultural conservation tillage practices are a legitimate method to store carbon. Should policy-makers embark on a cap-and-trade policy to curtail carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture has the potential to be a cost-effective solution."

Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp said, "Real reductions of greenhouse gases will come only with a firm cap on emissions, and carbon offsets on farms and forests can make a huge contribution. This important book is a badly needed how-to manual for farmers and foresters who want to participate in a carbon market, showing them how to create, measure and verify their offset reductions. It also represents an important step toward reassuring the public that offset reductions are real and will meet rigorous standards."

The guide is divided into three sections. The first provides an overview for legislators, foresters, farmers and people unfamiliar with offset markets but interested in learning about them. The second provides a more detailed but nontechnical discussion of the offset process for project developers, investors and purchasers of offsets. The third provides the technical information critical to the individuals responsible for quantifying, verifying or regulating offset projects.

Some land managers in agriculture and forestry are building demonstration projects that apply the recommendations in the guide.

In Idaho, reforestation projects will return previously cultivated lands to pine forests, with the resulting offsets accruing to a Native American tribe. In New York, a group of small landowners and dairy operators is producing offsets by combining reforestation, no-till farming, methane capture from manure, buffer zones and cover crops.

With recent scientific assessments confirming the need to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to help slow global warming and estimates that altered land-use practices can help reduce emissions, federal and state legislators alike are paying more attention to options for sequestering carbon dioxide in soils and forests.

The Nicholas Institute is a nonpartisan academic institution established in 2005 to bridge the gap between academic research and active environmental policy-making and to serve as an honest broker in the policy-making process.

Environmental Defense is a national nonprofit organization that links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to create breakthrough solutions to environmental problems.