Harvesting Carbon...

[bucket]

Why does no one promote farmers being paid for sequestering carbon thru minimum tillage?

Not one politician has said that there will be a payment for carbon direct to farmers.


There must be studies detailing how much carbon is sequestered with current farm practices.

[riders2010]

Absolutely. But it's more of the agenda to make political points with everyone except us.

The new carbon tax is bull crap other than it will lead to the pipelines being built.
Freeride is in an uproar guess doesn't want the pipeline. yet we ve had a failed carbon tAx here ever since the carbon sequestration flop. For political reasons we are ignoring the billions that is costing us right here and so worried about something that as I understand it will refund the money to farmers????

[bucket]

So far I have heard both the prime minister and the federal environment minister call it a carbon tax and then correct themselves to pricing.

It's idiotic. Although Trudeau has probably sold the country to the Chinese billionaires roaming around ...then they can use Canada as an offset.

[grassfarmer]

There must be studies detailing how much carbon is sequestered with current farm practices.

There are but they don't show what you'd like them to show. If you are "turning things black" as SF3 likes to, or likely even minimum till you are making the problem worse. With zero-till you are maybe at best holding ground, maintaining the OM at the sorry levels it was reduced to by your forebears. I know how to sequester carbon in agriculture because we are doing it every day - building OM, moving fences and trampling forage into the ground with animals. That's the only meaningful way to sequester carbon on agricultural land.
Maybe a few things you can do with cover crops, legume underseeds etc but conventional agriculture isn't generally harvesting carbon so you can't expect to get paid for something you aren't doing.

[fjlip]

If oceans sequester, so do all my sloughs and potholes...pay me, at least recognize that.

[farming101]

Grassfarmer, a link to an authoritive study please? Until then I beg to differ.

[checking]

11.4 kg of CO2 produced for each kg of live cattle weight. Is that significant gassyfarmer because I'm sure you tell your customers everything?

What's the methane belch end figure, significant or not, in greenhouse gas kg emission?

[grassfarmer]

Grassfarmer, a link to an authoritive study please? Until then I beg to differ.

I know someone doing research in this field and these are his findings , as yet unpublished. No doubt there are studies available on the internet but then it turns into a he said/she said argument.

I think the whole question raised by Bucket is moot anyway. It would appear likely that the only way you would get paid was if the carbon was captured for ever. No use paying a farmer to sequester for 3 years then the 4th year he ploughs the field and releases all that was captured. Same if one farmer does it well then sells the farm who someone who wants to turn it all over. Because of this chances are the necessary agreements would be something like a Ducks Conservation Easement - you are signing up the land use in perpetuity with strict conditions on your management practices.
Any takers for carbon sequestration payments on these terms?

[grassfarmer]

11.4 kg of CO2 produced for each kg of live cattle weight. Is that significant gassyfarmer because I'm sure you tell your customers everything?

What's the methane belch end figure, significant or not, in greenhouse gas kg emission?

I posted this link before, maybe you didn't check it checking.

[URL="http://holisticmanagement.ca/uncategorized/solving-climate-change-with-holistic-management/"]http://http://holisticmanagement.ca/uncategorized/solving-climate-change-with-holistic-management/[/URL]

Point 5 contains the figures to refute your argument. For every kg of cattle CO2 emitted between 17-39kgs were sequestered through their grazing management. Proven right there in Saskatchewan.

[westernvicki]

I am told the best kept secret is the groups that are working on this.. pray tell.