forbes.

com

The Caribbean Has A 'Dirty' Solution

For Climate Change
Mar. 10th, 2019 Send to Kindle

In the Caribbean, the interconnectedness between soil quality, climate change

and agriculture is viewed through a narrow lens. It is widely accepted that
healthy soil is required to grow bountiful crops and that the quality of soil and
crops is negatively affected by (climate change induced) droughts, floods and
storms. This unidirectional understanding disregards a major element of the
dynamic— the impact of healthy soil on climate change through the removal (or
sequestering) of carbon dioxide or CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to Anne Desrochers of Solanum Consulting, “Soil organic matter,

typically found in greatest amount in the top 20 cm of soils, plays a crucial role in
the biological, physical and chemical properties of soil. Adequate organic matter
content in soils will greatly improve soil quality and ultimately crop production.
Organic matter has the amazing ability to increase the retention of both water
and nutrients into the soil as well as to improve soil structure and reduce
erosion.”

Because soil sequesters more carbon than the atmosphere and vegetation
combined, and can hold onto it longer, enhancing soil carbon levels provides a
major opportunity to reverse current global trends of atmospheric accumulation
of CO2.

According to the Rodale Institute, “we could sequester more than 100% of
current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive
organic management practices, which we term ‘regenerative organic agriculture.’
These practices work to maximize carbon fixation while minimizing the loss of
that carbon once returned to the soil, reversing the greenhouse effect.”

Regenerative practices include organic farming (with composting and crop

rotation), managed grazing (systematic rotation of grazing animals), silvopasture
(integrating trees, forage, and the grazing of domesticated animals), planting of
perennial crops (crops developed to reduce inputs) and agroforestry (agriculture
incorporating trees). According to Terra Genesis International, these practices
and principles have the cumulative potential to remove significant amounts of
carbon from the atmosphere each year.

A major objective of regenerative agriculture is to convert economically viable

and oftentimes degraded land into a socially and environmentally responsible
resource. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD), more than 14% of the two billion hectares of degraded
land in the world is within the Latin America and Caribbean region. These lands
represent more than one-fifth of the forests and agricultural lands of the region
(FAO).

Most of this degradation has occurred as a result of deforestation, overgrazing

and in countries such as the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname,
activities such as gold and bauxite mining have caused soil toxicity and pollution.
Traditional agricultural techniques practiced throughout the region, such as
tilling, deep root removal, slash and burn and indiscriminate use of synthetic
fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides are also detrimental and have
caused extreme soil degradation.

There is great potential in the Caribbean for the restoration of degraded lands
and enhancement of the extensive types of soils encountered here. Regenerative
agriculture can profitably bring the region to carbon neutral status while
improving food security and reducing the negative impacts on water supply
(healthy soils require less water to produce the same amount of food).
A propitious opportunity exists for the island of Dominica, which has eight major
groups of soils, and as many as 75 soil classes, to achieve carbon neutrality.
According to Global Forest Watch, a web-based initiative of the World Resources
Organization that monitors global forests in near real-time, Dominica’s Total Soil
Organic Carbon (resulting from ecological processes occurring at the soil
surface) is 12 metric tonnes, which is very small, given the island’s small land
mass. That said Dominica’s Carbon Soil Density is an impressive 158 tonnes per
hectare (at the time of analysis)— the highest in the Caribbean. Given the
devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017, the island has placed great
priority on rebuilding a sustainable agriculture sector that is climate resilient—
herein lies a major opportunity for regenerative agriculture.

Guyana provides an intriguing contrast to Dominica. The Lands and Surveys

Commission (2006) has identified at least 18 dominant soils in the South
American nation. While Total Soil Carbon is high at 1.84 gigatonnes (at the time
that it was reported by Global Forest Watch) Soil Carbon Density is much lower
than that of Dominica, at 86 tonnes per hectare. There is great potential for
optimization of soil carbon levels in Guyana, especially given that total forest
coverage extends beyond 18,570,000 hectares.

The number of regenerative agriculture projects in the Caribbean is slowly

increasing. The Face Rio Bravo project and the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate
Action Project in Belize have been responsible for offsetting millions of tonnes of
Carbon from the atmosphere. Walker’s Reserve in Barbados is a sand mining
operation that is being converted into an integrated, regenerative food-system.
Durga’s Den in Jamaica works in partnership with the hotel industry, using
regenerative agriculture techniques, reforestation and offering training in these
practices.

Regenerative agriculture can profitably bring the region to carbon

neutral status while improving... [+] food security and reducing the
negative impacts on water supply.

Getty

According to Ian McNeel, Founder of Walker’s Reserve, “Our vision is to design

and create regenerative spaces in which individuals can connect and reconnect to
the environment, while building more resilient ecosystems and communities. We
must move from extractive economy to a regenerative economy.”

Projects such as these hold great potential for the Caribbean’s small island
developing states given their small surface area, vulnerability to extreme weather
events and reliance on one or two primary industries. Despite their limited size,
inaction is not without its consequences— the St. Lucian government has
projected the cost of inaction on climate change to be at 12.1% of GDP by 2025,
24.5% by 2050 and 49.1% by 2100.

According to Dr. Rattan Lal, Soil Scientist from Ohio State University, “a mere 2%
increase in the soil content of the planet’s soils, could offset 100% of all
greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere.”

With the effects of climate change impacting the Caribbean disproportionately, if

this ambitious goal could be achieved, it would reduce atmospheric carbon,
provide direct benefits for the farmer, improve food and water security and have
significant positive impacts on national economies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2019/03/10/regenerative-agriculture/?sh=a8550466661c