Regenerative Agriculture Revisited

Image source.

About a month and a half ago, I blogged about a no-till, cover-crop, monoculture-phobic farming technique called regenerative or restorative agriculture, which has proponents who make some — to say the least — rather remarkable claims regarding its environmental benefits. I expressed my skepticism in the post, and I promised a follow-up where I would check some of the numbers. Let's take a look at one of the more astounding assertions made by David C. Johnson of New Mexico State University.

Johnson claims that by combining no-till farming with a composting process he developed, which changes the soil microbe mix from one that is mostly bacterial to one that is mostly fungal, it may only take 11% of the world's cropland to offset total anthropogenic CO2 emissions (~34 Gt/yr).

If you're not aware, that, ladies and gentlemen, is quite a staggering declaration, and here's why...




The world has somewhere near 1,396,200,000 hectares, or 13,962,000 square kilometers, or 3.5 billion acres of arable land.

11% of 3,500,000,000 acres is 385,000,000 acres. In order for that amount of land to offset 34 Gt of CO2 annually, each acre would have to sequester about 88 metric tons each year.

That's around the mass of a herd of 10-15 African elephants getting stuffed into an approximate 200' by 200' area of ground every year.

While admitting uncertainties, Eve et al. 2002, the USDA, and the National Farmers Union all put the best sequestration rates for strict no-till farming practices at about 0.6 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year more than popular conventional tillage practices. At that improved rate, if we converted all 3.5 billion acres of viable cropland (not just 11%) to no-till agriculture, we would take about an additional 2,100,000,000 metric tons or 2.1 Gt of CO2 out of the atmosphere annually, which is nice, but quite a departure from Johnson's numbers.

Therefore this composting technique, whatever it is, would have to improve no-till's sequestration potential by 146 times (88/0.6=~146).

146 times.

That's some fairly impressive decaying biological material, lemme tell ya. Now, I must admit I have not read Kristin Ohlson's book, nor have I delved fully into Johnson's research at NMSU/WERC, and Sandia Labs, so I cannot even pretend to understand the entire process he is proposing, but 0.6 metric tons of sequestered CO2 versus 88 metric tons? I feel pretty comfortable at this point reinforcing my initial skepticism, while welcoming any corrections at the same time. In other words, lemme have it, regenerative agriculture fans, because right now I am anything but convinced. ;)

Regenerative Agriculture

Ya never know. They could save us all.

Science Friday had an eye-opening piece last week about using a regimen of non-industrial farming techniques to reduce atmospheric carbon, and, hold onto your compost rake, increase yields. A couple excerpts...

David Johnson of New Mexico State University...claims that just 11% of the world's cropland could potentially offset all of our current carbon dioxide emissions.

Ira Flatow: "And your production, your output has not suffered from doing it the old-fashioned way?"

Gabe Brown: "No, quite the contrary, our expenses are a fraction of the conventional production model, because we no longer need to use all of the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, but also our yield, if you're talking the amount of grain that we're producing per acre, is above the average in my surrounding communities. So we're getting more production at a much lower cost, and in turn we are regenerating the soil which is the important thing."

Wow. Those are some pretty bold statements, eh? Over the next few weeks, I will look for some reliable stats on the amount of carbon this no-till, cover-crop, monoculture-phobic approach can capture, and double-check as best I can Johnson's estimate here. If anyone wants to beat me to the punch and do some number-crunching in the comments below, knock yerself out, and thanks in advance.

For a long time, I've felt that a fossil fuel-intensive, subsidy-dependent agricultural system was counterproductive and ultimately unsustainable. As Gabe Brown, the rancher interviewed in the Science Friday piece, puts it...

"We need to think of it this way, soils under the conventional production model are kind of like a drug addict. They have to be weened slowly, as Kristin said, to build these populations [of helpful microbes]."

But I was not aware of any robust alternatives that could break through the inertia of an arse-backward, oil-based economy which encourages, or just about demands, excessive fossil fuel usage in almost everything we do as a society, especially crop production. This method is quite new to me, and I have to admit I'm having some "too good to be true" knee-jerk reactions here, so I welcome any enlightening input. However, if this regenerative farming is all it's cracked up to be, I will equally welcome the dope slap I've just received, to put it lightly.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that if it's as viable as advertised, and we combine regenerative agriculture, space-based solar power, legalization of hemp cultivation, and nuclear power, we have just about solved the entire problem. OK, that's a wrap. Now, get to work editing it all together, everyone. :)

Will the Climate Care If We Stop Eating Meat?

I imagine most of us these days have vegetarian friends trying to convince us to eat less meat and dairy, or none at all. I know I do. Some of the most intelligent people I know argue that I should change my diet to one that is predominantly or wholly plant matter. One friend has a PhD in microbiology, teaches at a university, and has a UNESCO climate change report authorship under his impressively-credentialed belt. Others are extremely talented filmmakers, one of which has won a filmmaking award in his home state. Another still is seeking an advanced philosophy degree. What may distinguish them from your own friends is that they are all animal activists, so their interest in transforming what I stuff into my face is not so much the improvement of my health as the welfare of all those creatures, great and small, out there. Another common trait among these compatriots of mine is that they try to use my concern for a changing climate against me.

Wait a second, with friends like these...

I kid, because they could be a lot worse about it, like, you know, maybe as obnoxious as S. E. Cupp.

Their arguments thankfully are more comprehensive and substantive than hers, go something like this, and, I must admit, have some pretty solid-looking numbers behind them...

Agriculture accounts for about 14% of our global GHG emissions.



If you analyze those GHGs separately, you find that the livestock supply chain accounts for troubling amounts of total anthropogenic CH4 and N2O:

• 3.1 gigatonnes CO2-eq of CH4 per annum, or 44 percent of anthropogenic CH4 emissions (IPCC, 2007)
• 2 gigatonnes CO2-eq of N2O per annum, or 53 percent of anthropogenic N2O emissions (IPCC, 2007)

However, when it comes to CO2, the story is somewhat less distressing:

• 2 gigatonnes CO2-eq of CO2 per annum, or 5 percent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions (IPCC, 2007)

They often further argue how much energy and resources we could save and how many more people we could feed, if, rather than stuff grains down the gullets of ruminants and other farm critters, we instead give them to humans.

It's a strong argument on the surface, but even though I personally do not eat anywhere near as much meat as your average American, it's not because these numbers and my friends' appeals have convinced me. I'm not a vegetarian (and I probably won't get the chance to play one on TV), but I can go several meals without eating meat thanks to an appreciation for the satisfying variety of edible plant products. I guess I'm just not as crazy about meat as everyone else. I will admit to one environmentally-disastrous weakness: salmon. I consume it with the eagerness of a grizzly when I can get it, and no one's gonna stop that without a bear of a brawl.

Anyway, though those numbers do suggest something has to change, and while I think that using someone's own beliefs against him or her can be an effective and convincing tactic now and then, there's a problem with decrying the actual act of eating meat, and my animal activist friends often want to strangle me for bringing it up.

Before I explain what I feel is the issue, let me first admit that I sometimes take exception to animal activism, or at least the less scientifically-aware versions of it which conflict with my own environmental sensibilities. I only mention it, so that you, the reader, take it into account when I finally get to my explanation. My personal bias could be influencing me negatively, and I might be wrong! I really have no problem with trying to reduce the unnecessary misery we wittingly and unwittingly unleash on all those animals out there we should share this world with in a less-than-cruel manner, but sometimes it seems I am operating with a different definition of "unnecessary."

The preservation of biodiversity is an issue about which I sometimes feel as strongly as climate change, which has severe implications for it. The fact of the matter is that, like a stable climate, we humans need abundant biological variation to thrive and maybe even to survive. With 7 billion of us on the planet and more on the way, the proper, scientifically-informed management of wild places is our best bet for ensuring the future of threatened and endangered species. I find it frustrating and infuriating at times that animal activists can interfere with wildlife management efforts, such as when they protest the culling of populous coyotes that encroach on the territory of endangered red wolves. Animal activists will rightly argue that both the success of the coyote and the failure of red wolf populations are due to human activity, but unless they have a time machine to travel into the past to change present realities, we need to allow restoration programs to run their course. Another example is protesting managed deer hunts. Sure, humans have wiped out natural predators, and, sure, it sometimes seems like our automobiles and car insurance premiums are what matter most to us, but the fact of the matter is deer are decimating forests, and we can't wish the wolves back into existence or even restore their numbers in time to protect the other species that depend on these remote areas. We have to let wildlife management professionals do their job. PETA regularly protests hunting, and even fishing! Both are revenue-generating activities without which developers or other economic interests would move in and remove the natural lands that they help keep intact.

With that in mind, what I feel is missing from those powerful-seeming numbers above is the fact that they are more indicative of a problematic production system than they are a damning indictment of human dietary behavior that needs to end. Let me see if I can put it more simply. Did flesh-eating dinosaurs raise GHGs millions of years ago by consuming their prey? Do present-day predators do so? Did Native Americans change the climate by hunting bison and other animals before Europeans arrived? Is the Arctic warming because Inuit tribes can have diets that are about 90% animal flesh?

Though I am delighted they have enlightened me, it can be argued that in some ways my animal activist friends have defeated their own purposes by calling attention to agri-business practices intended to reduce slaughter-ready cattle production times from five years to 12-14 months. I, like them, am appalled that we would even attempt to speed up the maturation of livestock so unnecessarily, but I do not see that as incriminating the simple act of eating or preference for meat. Instead, I see it as a condemnation of the production means that factory farms have adopted, and our mindless and demanding consumerism.

If we returned to natural (for lack of a better term), less fossil fuel-intensive farming, longer livestock maturation times, and higher prices, animal activists obviously won't see meat consumption come to a complete stop, but they will see far fewer animals slaughtered and eaten. Unless a personal distaste for the track record of their protests is corrupting my logical faculties here, that's a compromise that promotes good health, a stable climate, and their cruelty-free agenda and principles as well. Unless I'm way off, everybody wins, except people who want to have a cheap steak at every meal.