Agriculture’s Role in Climate Change

According to this New York Times blog post, the cattle feed provided for the 1.5 million cows located in the Central Valley of California has been linked to the considerably poor air quality that settles over the area. I was a student in the Central Valley for 4 years before coming to the University of Kansas and experienced this pollution first hand. Who would have thought that tail-pipe emissions are not as detrimental to local air quality as are the chemicals released by cattle feed?

I come from a farming background (revealed in greater detail here) and my family runs a Western Nebraska farm corporation. I share this example because while the agricultural industry is not often considered a significant polluter, farming communities will have a huge stake in the upcoming climate change legislation debate. According to the EPA’s U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report in 2008, the agricultural sector was responsible for emissions of 427.5 teragrams of CO2 equivalents (Tg CO2 Eq.), or 6 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The fact that cattle feed is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions has a major impact on the State of Kansas.  At the beginning of 2006, Kansas was ranked second behind Texas in total cattle numbers with 6.6 million total head of cattle. Sixteen of the 25 largest cattle feeders in the U.S. have facilities in Kansas and represent a major market for Kansas feed grains. The financial well-being of Kansas citizens is critically dependent upon the profitability and growth of the beef cattle industry.

However, one should not overlook the many positive environmental benefits of agriculture. For example, agricultural practices that conserve soil and improve soil quality also increase the amount of carbon-rich organic matter in soils, thereby providing a global depository for carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere by growing plants. The same farming practices that promote soil conservation also decrease the amount of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and threatening global warming.

According to the Agricultural Marketing Research Center, if federal and state governments create incentives for lowering greenhouse gas emissions farmers in the State of Kansas will be uniquely positioned to take advantage of these by: 

1)   Sequestering carbon in agricultural soils by reducing tillage,  
2)   Reducing nitrous oxide emissions through more efficient use of nitrogen fertilizer,  
3)   Developing viable technologies for creating ammonia (nitrogen fertilizer) from feedstocks other than natural gas.  
4)   Capturing methane emissions from anaerobic manure handling facilities,  
5)   Substituting renewable fuels for gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas used on the farm,  
6)   Increasing the generation of electricity from wind and other renewable sources,  
7)   Expanding the use of practices like managed shelterbelts and forested riparian zones, 
8)   Other changes not yet thought of.  

Kansans need to be prepared for climate change regulations. Agricultural communities need to start exploring the above opportunities more seriously in order to reduce their own impacts, help others mitigate theirs, and develop new sectors of the economy supported by agriculture. Organizations like the Kansas Rural Center and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition are committed to economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially sustainable rural culture. In addition, here is an excellent and simple explanation from the American Farmland Trust for agriculture’s role in the cap-and-trade system.

-Joshua Foster