Very nice article. The approach is very interesting, the question is how market can provide incentives for farmer who implement regenerative agriculture practices?
Hey Sarah. I feel you may be partially informed on some of your points. There are valid points, but an equal amount of half baked assumptions that take away from the article. There is a reason the suicide rate of farmers surpassed servicemen and women. It is not because they are struggling with how to spend all of there government subsidy. Edgy ideas like taking land from farm owners based on another's idea of best practices is not helpful for any forward motion in the desired transition we likely agree is needed. I'm happy to share ideas and recieve them. I would not have shared my thoughts here if I did not appreciate the article. Good luck
In other words, I'm open to hearing feedback, but I wrote a whole article, and you didn't actually point to any of the supposed "half-baked assumptions." You wrote one paragraph, and it included a verifiably false fact. Your belief that American farmers are mostly poor and suicidal is absolutely false. When you take that into account, I'd like to hear what you think my bad assumptions are.
I've recently heard differently re: soil carbon from cover crops from AEA, if I understood it correctly. The ultimate goal with the cover crop (tilled in) is humification, which locks up carbon in a form that is not easily soluble or digestable by any soil biology after it has been digested muiltiple times by fungi. In this case it's only a portion of the total carbon, but we add that to the benefit of reduced oxidation and dehydration which also leads to release of carbon and lower irrigation requirements and the 'green carbon' that is locked up in the annual cycle rather than floating in the air, and over time it's an undeniable net benefit. It also depends on a number of factors like the depth and type of tilling that is done, the timing, and overall management of crops and crop residues.
I appreciated the point about possibly creating incentive to cultivate land that otherwise would not, I would hope there would be guardrails to prevent that, but with this administration I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't, or it was a paper guardrail.
I also appreciate you pointing out just how Biden is currupt in this particular case. I'd heard he was targeting ag for climate change, but I knew it would be more pork in the end, now I have a better idea bout this.
Philip-- thanks for the feedback. I need to know more about the science here for sure, but the problem is, with a lot of these things, the science is just not there yet to reliably say *how much* is getting stored and how long it stays stored. I've spoken with a lot of experts on this, and there are definitely optimistic signs and bright spots, but overwhelmingly, what we're talking about paying for is not verifiably good science with reliably beneficial outcomes.
I know plenty of farmers in Virginia, Minnesota/Michigan, North Carolina, and elsewhere who are cutting down forests to plant grains. Not to mention the thousands of square miles of wetlands that have been eliminated in the midwest in the last 40 years. See: Gulf Hypoxia to learn more.
Clearing hedgerows and removing brush? Yes. Tile draining wet areas? Yes. However, there is no economic incentive for farmers to do what you are suggesting, i.e. clear cutting "forests" and converting wetlands.
The following USDA data shows acres of commodity crops decreasing over time.
2020 Planted Acres* (Including failed acres) per USDA Farm Service Agency (reported 5-Jan-21) = 244,436,579
2016 Planted Acres* (Including failed Acres) per USDA Farm Service Agency (reported 4-Jan-17) = 247,417,282
You're talking about two different things here. First, I can literally direct you straight to farmers who are currently clear cutting forests. Harvesting lumber, raking out the stumps, and clearing land for grain production. It's happening. I don't know what to tell you. I've seen it with my own eyes.
On your second point, acres of commodity crops have been decreasing over time because of development, not because forests are growing. Farmers sell land to exurban and suburban developers all the time. As a matter of fact, I know plenty of farmers in Virginia and near other major population centers that sell cropland near cities for top dollar for development, and identify marginal land further away where they harvest the lumber and then clear them for cropland. These numbers would be much higher if there was not land clearing going on.
GND will be full of mal-incentives... outlawing actual good practices, and subsidizing more greenwashing...
<a href="http://bit.ly/1GnbtAA">"Annual agriculture is all about living through our concepts... our idea we've imposed on reality & when reality doesn't behave according to our idea, what do we do? We input... we can never input enough to make our false concept correct."</a>
Very nice article. The approach is very interesting, the question is how market can provide incentives for farmer who implement regenerative agriculture practices?
Hey Sarah. I feel you may be partially informed on some of your points. There are valid points, but an equal amount of half baked assumptions that take away from the article. There is a reason the suicide rate of farmers surpassed servicemen and women. It is not because they are struggling with how to spend all of there government subsidy. Edgy ideas like taking land from farm owners based on another's idea of best practices is not helpful for any forward motion in the desired transition we likely agree is needed. I'm happy to share ideas and recieve them. I would not have shared my thoughts here if I did not appreciate the article. Good luck
In other words, I'm open to hearing feedback, but I wrote a whole article, and you didn't actually point to any of the supposed "half-baked assumptions." You wrote one paragraph, and it included a verifiably false fact. Your belief that American farmers are mostly poor and suicidal is absolutely false. When you take that into account, I'd like to hear what you think my bad assumptions are.
https://thecounter.org/farmer-suicide-crisis-cdc-study/
Great article, I think I learned something new.
I've recently heard differently re: soil carbon from cover crops from AEA, if I understood it correctly. The ultimate goal with the cover crop (tilled in) is humification, which locks up carbon in a form that is not easily soluble or digestable by any soil biology after it has been digested muiltiple times by fungi. In this case it's only a portion of the total carbon, but we add that to the benefit of reduced oxidation and dehydration which also leads to release of carbon and lower irrigation requirements and the 'green carbon' that is locked up in the annual cycle rather than floating in the air, and over time it's an undeniable net benefit. It also depends on a number of factors like the depth and type of tilling that is done, the timing, and overall management of crops and crop residues.
I appreciated the point about possibly creating incentive to cultivate land that otherwise would not, I would hope there would be guardrails to prevent that, but with this administration I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't, or it was a paper guardrail.
I also appreciate you pointing out just how Biden is currupt in this particular case. I'd heard he was targeting ag for climate change, but I knew it would be more pork in the end, now I have a better idea bout this.
Philip-- thanks for the feedback. I need to know more about the science here for sure, but the problem is, with a lot of these things, the science is just not there yet to reliably say *how much* is getting stored and how long it stays stored. I've spoken with a lot of experts on this, and there are definitely optimistic signs and bright spots, but overwhelmingly, what we're talking about paying for is not verifiably good science with reliably beneficial outcomes.
Thought provoking article. But, where are US farmers converting forests and wetlands to commodity grain production?
I know plenty of farmers in Virginia, Minnesota/Michigan, North Carolina, and elsewhere who are cutting down forests to plant grains. Not to mention the thousands of square miles of wetlands that have been eliminated in the midwest in the last 40 years. See: Gulf Hypoxia to learn more.
Clearing hedgerows and removing brush? Yes. Tile draining wet areas? Yes. However, there is no economic incentive for farmers to do what you are suggesting, i.e. clear cutting "forests" and converting wetlands.
The following USDA data shows acres of commodity crops decreasing over time.
2020 Planted Acres* (Including failed acres) per USDA Farm Service Agency (reported 5-Jan-21) = 244,436,579
2016 Planted Acres* (Including failed Acres) per USDA Farm Service Agency (reported 4-Jan-17) = 247,417,282
*Barley, Corn, Cotton ELS, Cotton Upland, Oats, Rice, Sorghum, Soybeans, Sugar Beets, Sugarcane, Wheat
You're talking about two different things here. First, I can literally direct you straight to farmers who are currently clear cutting forests. Harvesting lumber, raking out the stumps, and clearing land for grain production. It's happening. I don't know what to tell you. I've seen it with my own eyes.
On your second point, acres of commodity crops have been decreasing over time because of development, not because forests are growing. Farmers sell land to exurban and suburban developers all the time. As a matter of fact, I know plenty of farmers in Virginia and near other major population centers that sell cropland near cities for top dollar for development, and identify marginal land further away where they harvest the lumber and then clear them for cropland. These numbers would be much higher if there was not land clearing going on.
GND will be full of mal-incentives... outlawing actual good practices, and subsidizing more greenwashing...
<a href="http://bit.ly/1GnbtAA">"Annual agriculture is all about living through our concepts... our idea we've imposed on reality & when reality doesn't behave according to our idea, what do we do? We input... we can never input enough to make our false concept correct."</a>