Burying carbon in soil won’t halt climate change
Agri-TechE The idea of using crops to collect more atmospheric carbon and locking it into soil’s organic matter to offset fossil fuel emissions was launched at COP21, the 21st annual Conference of Parties to review the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in 2015. The aim was to increase carbon sequestration by “four parts per 1000 (4P1000)” per year for 20 years.
However, unique soils data from long-term experiments, stretching back to the middle of the nineteenth century, confirm the concept of burying carbon in the ground to halt climate change is flawed.
The findings come from an analysis of the rates of change of carbon in soil by scientists at Rothamsted Research where samples have been collected from fields since 1843.
The Rothamsted scientists used data from 16 experiments on three different soil types, giving over 110 treatment comparisons. “The results showed that the “4 per 1000″ rate of increase in soil carbon can be achieved in some cases but usually only with extreme measures that would mainly be impractical or unacceptable,” says Paul Poulton, lead author and an emeritus soils specialist.
“For example, large annual applications of animal manure led to increases in soil carbon that continued over many years but the amounts of manure required far exceeded acceptable limits under EU regulations and would cause massive nitrate pollution,” notes Poulton.
Removing land from agriculture led to large rates of soil carbon increase in the Rothamsted experiments but would be highly damaging to global food security.
Although, returning crop residues to soil was effective at increasing carbon sequestration but, this is already done so cannot be regarded as a totally new practice.
“For example, in the UK about 50% of cereal straw is currently returned to soil and much of the remainder is used for animal feed or bedding, at least some of which is later returned to soil as manure,” says Poulton. “In many other countries, however, crop residues are often used as a source of fuel for cooking.”
“Although there can be environmental benefits from such a system, most farmers find that it is uneconomic under present circumstances,” says Powlson. “To make this change on a large scale would require policy decisions regarding changes to subsidy and farm support. Such a change would also have impacts on total food production.”
They suggest that a more logical rationale for promoting practices that increase soil organic carbon is the urgent need to preserve and improve the functioning of soils, both for sustainable food security and wider ecosystem services.
For climate change mitigation through changes in agricultural practices, they point out that measures to decrease emission of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas almost 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, may be more effective.
The paper: Major limitations to achieving “4 per 1000” increases in soil organic carbon stock in temperate regions: Evidence from long-term experiments at Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom. Global Change Biology, 2018; DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14066
Post Overview
Agri-TechE Related Posts
Taking trials out into the field
Data is the Greatest Accelerant in Ag-tech Innovation
Farming Update – March 2026
Rebuilding the relationship between agriculture and the Labour government
Genetics, Agronomy and Data with National Institute of Agricultural Botany (Niab)
“I came here with a specific goal – to meet farmers to recruit into a new soils project – and I’ve achieved it,” a delegate from a major agri-research organisation commented on the REAP feedback form.
Innovation often occurs following chance encounters. This is well recognised by architects who include cafes, seating areas and co-working areas in the design of business incubators such as the Centrum on the Norwich Research Park, the Lawes Open Innovation Hub at Rothamsted, and the Kings Lynn Innovation Hub run by NWES.
Social media also has an important role – providing global, national and local insights into new developments, and sharing challenges and experiences. We have seen Twitter being embraced by the community as quick way to ‘bookmark’ key nuggets of information.
Agrilytix Ltd is developing an agricultural monitoring system that uses satellite imagery and machine learning to provide enhanced decision support for smaller farmers in challenging environments.
How do you value land use? How can you benchmark crop performance? How do you measure sustainability? These are big questions in agriculture. To help technology developers create the tools to support industry answering these questions, Agrimetrics has created a new Developer Portal that was demonstrated for the first time at Agri-Tech’s REAP conference. The portal will allow programmers access to national agri-food data, ordered in a consistent format so that multiple sources of information can be brought together in new ways.
Tomatoes, strawberries and other crops grown undercover are a rich source of active plant ingredients such as lycopene, anticyanins and isoflavones that are used in the cosmetic and health industries. A workshop hosted by Niab will be reviewing the options for growers in the emerging bioeconomy on Friday 10th November during Agri-Tech’s Agri-TechE Week 2017.
Express Weather has developed a decision support system called Farmneed that quantifies weather risk in agriculture.
Angshujyoti Das, founder of Express Weather, explains:
To ensure the accuracy of their guidance, Express Weather has collaborated with centres of excellence in India, who have provided weather related risk knowledge during life cycle stages of particular crops.
A recent report released by WRAP estimates that around nineteen per cent of all lettuces were unharvested in 2015, with 38,000 tonnes lost across the sector worth an estimated £7million. To ensure that supply meets demand the industry overproduces, this partially due to uncertainty over weather conditions, but also as a result of specifications over the desirable ‘head size’.
Salad consumption is highly variable depending on weather – a ‘barbeque weekend’ will boost demand and a wet one depress it. The maturity of the lettuce head is another variable: there is only a short time when it achieves the quality requirements of the supermarkets; if the head is too developed it will not have the required shelf life.
Throughout its two-and-a-half year history, 30MHz has worked within several industry sectors, including monitoring damage on mooring posts for the port of Amsterdam, and monitoring occupancy and people flow in the Van Gogh Museum.
