{"id":3832,"date":"2014-05-26T23:53:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T23:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/?p=3832"},"modified":"2016-04-06T11:35:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T11:35:19","slug":"farm-focus-can-the-soil-save-us-from-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/farm-focus-can-the-soil-save-us-from-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Focus: Can the Soil Save Us from Climate Change?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\nThis is a great article written by\u00a0cuesa.org<\/a>'s\u00a0Brie Mazurek as a follow up to the panel discussion and book reading Can the Soil Save\u00a0Us from Climate Change?<\/strong> by Kristin Ohlson. Frog Hollow's Farmer Al was a panelist in the discussion. Enjoy and thanks Brie!\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>\n\n\"soil_will_save_us_0\"<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\n\u00a0When we think of the earth beneath our feet, we generally think we\u2019re on \u00a0solid ground. But soil is anything but solid. With roughly six billion organisms in a single tablespoon, healthy soil is a vast, dynamic, and hidden microcosmos. In the words of journalist Kristin Ohlson, \u201cWe\u2019re standing on something that\u2019s more like a coral\u00a0reef.\u201d\n\nOhlson recently spoke at a\u00a0panel discussion<\/a>\u00a0hosted by\u00a0CUESA\u00a0called \u201cThe Soil Will Save Us.\u201d In researching\u00a0her book by the same name<\/a>, she interviewed scientists and farmers who are putting those soil communities to work. She came away with awe and hope for soil\u2019s complexity and its immense potential to heal the\u00a0planet.\n

Capturing\u00a0Carbon<\/h2>\nHuman activities like burning fossil fuels have led to global warming by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. Reversing climate change is not just a matter of decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels, but also reducing the excess\u00a0CO2 that is currently in the\u00a0atmosphere.\n\nThat\u2019s where soil comes\u00a0in.\n\nHealthy soil captures and stores atmospheric carbon. Through photosynthesis, plants convertCO2 into the food they need to grow. About 40% of that carbon gets deposited into the soil through the plants, where it feeds microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. Those creatures, in return, give mineral nutrients to the plants, providing a natural\u00a0fertilizer.\n\nOhlson calls this process the \u201cancient partnership between soil microorganisms and plants,\u201d and it is an important part of the\u00a0carbon cycle<\/a>. Modern industrial agricultural practices such as monoculture planting, use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and tilling have disrupted this natural cycle, decreasing soil health and diversity and releasing harmful\u00a0CO2 into the\u00a0atmosphere.\n\n\u201cThe only way to bring [CO2] down is through plants,\u201d said Ohlson. \u201cThat\u2019s the great hope that we have not only for healing our climate, but for also healing all these other environmental ills we have, whether it\u2019s erosion or drought or floods or poor water and air\u00a0quality.\u201d\n

Farming for the\u00a0Climate<\/h2>\nAs scientists warn about the\u00a0urgency of climate change<\/a>\u00a0and California faces its most severe drought on record, some farmers and environmentalists are looking not to the air, but to the earth. \u201cA third of the excess carbon dioxide in atmosphere today is a direct function of how we have managed landscapes for the last 10,000 years,\u201d said Jeff Creque, co-founder of the\u00a0Marin Carbon Project<\/a>\u00a0and director of the\u00a0Carbon Cycle Institute<\/a>.\n\nAnd Creque sees responsible soil stewardship as the solution. In 2007, he and his colleagues asked the question, \u201cCan management enhance carbon sequestration in our rangeland soils?\u201d Working with ranches and agricultural organizations in Marin County, they spread half an inch of compost on several sites and quickly saw an increase in plant production, soil moisture, and soil\u00a0carbon.\n\nThe Marin Carbon Project\u2019s goal is to implement \u201ccarbon farming<\/a>\u201d practices (like compost application, cover crops, and no-till cultivation) on ranches throughout California. He estimates that if compost were applied to 5% of California\u2019s rangelands, it would offset of 32 to 36 million metric tons of carbon\u00a0dioxide.\n\nAs the planet warms and water becomes scarcer, the implications of carbon farming are huge. In addition to mitigating and possibly even reversing climate change, these practices can also lessen the impacts of the drought. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the potential to hold more water in our soils than in all of our state\u2019s reservoirs combined,\u201d Creque\u00a0said.\n

Healthy Soil, Healthy\u00a0Farms<\/h2>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0Carbon farming techniques increase microbial life in the soil, which may bring additional benefits for farmers, such as increased fertility and reduced need for chemical fertilizers and\u00a0pesticides.<\/p>\nSince he started making his own compost and letting his cover crops grow wild three years ago, Farmer Al Courchesne has witnessed a transformation at\u00a0Frog Hollow Farm<\/a>, his 145-acre organic fruit orchard in Brentwood. \u201cWe\u2019ve had the best apricot crop ever,\u201d he said. His trees have been more resistant to diseases such as brown rot, which have wiped out his apricots in past\u00a0years.\n\nTo make compost, the farm uses fruit that would otherwise go to waste, wood chips from the orchards, shredded cardboard boxes, spent coffee grounds, and waste collected from restaurants. One big culprit in global warming is the food waste that rots in landfills, which produces another powerful greenhouse gas: methane. Composting prevents this methane production by diverting organic matter from the waste stream and instead recycling it into the soil, where it feeds soil microbes and serves as a natural and potent\u00a0fertilizer.\n

Heroes of the\u00a0Underground<\/h2>\n

\"\"Implementing carbon farming practices on a large scale would require sweeping changes in agricultural policy, which will not come easily. \u201cThere\u2019s fear among the more conservative agriculture sector that they\u2019re going to be regulated as a greenhouse gas emitter,\u201d said Creque. \u201cThe opportunity to be recognized for greenhouse gas mitigation and reversal of climate change is\u00a0missing.\u201d<\/p>\nOhlson sees hope in\u00a0a new program<\/a>\u00a0launched by the National Resources Conservation Service in Oregon that compensates farmers for transitioning to no-till practices and planting cover\u00a0crops.\n\nCitizens can do their part by buying food from soil-conscious farmers, advocating for policies that support responsible land stewardship, and gardening with\u00a0climate-friendly practices<\/a>.\n\nCreque emphasized composting as an easy and important action that many of us can take, particularly in San Francisco, where there is municipal compost collection. \u201cWe have upwards of 30 million tons of organics being disposed of in California in landfills and anaerobic manure lagoons on confined feeding operations [industrial animal farms],\u201d he noted. \u201cIt is producing high-potency methane that would be hugely beneficial to get out of the waste\u00a0stream.\u201d\n\nReversing the effects of climate change will take all hands on deck, but Ohlson is optimistic, as long as we give back to the soil that gives so much to us. \u201cI think all of us can be heroes of the underground,\u201d she said in closing. \u201cWe can get a grip on what is happening to our landscapes and climate, and reverse a lot of the damage that\u2019s been\u00a0done.\u201d\n\n \n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a great article written by\u00a0cuesa.org’s\u00a0Brie Mazurek as a follow up to the panel discussion and book reading Can the Soil Save\u00a0Us from Climate Change? by Kristin Ohlson. Frog Hollow’s Farmer Al was a panelist in the discussion. Enjoy and thanks Brie!\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0When we think of the earth beneath our feet, we generally think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[597,598,230,382,234,152,599],"class_list":["post-3832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farm-focus","tag-can-the-soil-save-us-from-climate-change","tag-can-the-soil-save-us-from-climate-change-kristin-ohlson","tag-compost","tag-cuesa","tag-farmer-al","tag-ferry-building","tag-kristin-ohlson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HwAU-ZO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5000,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions\/5000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/happychildcsa.com\/froghollowCSA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}