Carbon Farming: From the Oil

Age to the Soil Age

Grazing Tall
 Carbon Farmers of America
A start-up ecosystem service aggregator/broker based on
rapid topsoil formation by graziers
 Topsoil can be created hundreds to
thousands of times faster than is
widely understood.
 New topsoil is the only carbon sink
on earth that can quickly sequester
the excess greenhouse gases in our
atmosphere.
 Livestock are the primary tool that
makes rapid topsoil formation
possible.
 Grassfarmers are the front line in
building new topsoil and stabilizing
our climate. They will need to be
paid to do the job.
 We need to make alliances with
environmentalists to make this
happen.
 What if there was a single carbon sink
on earth that could rapidly:
 Restore pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases within
decades?
 Solve the global water crisis?
 Reverse desertification?
 Restore biodiversity?
 Halt the sixth extinction event?
 Maximize global food security?
 Contribute significantly to healing the oceans?
 Create the foundation of a solar civilization?
Soil organic matter
sustains agriculture,
which sustains
civilization
__________

Soil organic matter

generates and
regulates every
ecosystem service that
sustains life on earth.
 Topsoil loss in excess of topsoil
formation has been the defining
characteristic of agriculture.

 Estimates of past losses of Carbon from terrestrial stocks:

– 66-90 billion tons (Rattan Lal, Ohio State U.)
– ~200 billion tons (Charles Rice, University of Kansas)

 Topsoil loss is as old as farming, land management by fire,

hunting of ungulate herds and their predators and livestock
domestication. The oil age has accelerated this trend. Global
warming began with topsoil loss many thousands of years ago.
 Carbon-rich topsoil is the
foundation of wealth creation on
earth and the “Fort Knox” of solar
economics.
Carbon is the currency of life.
The rapid formation of carbon-
rich topsoil is the greatest priority
and opportunity of our time.
Getting Real about Food Security

 “To keep up with the growth in human

population, more food will have to be grown
worldwide over the next 50 years than has
been during the past 10,000 years
combined .”
2008 Icelandic Soil and Climate Conference.
How does carbon get into the soil?
 Stable SOM comes largely
from Nightly Carbon Exudates
From Plant Roots.
 Chemically similar to nectar.
 Feeds organisms in the rhizosphere.
 Up-to half, and often more, of the products of
photosynthesis are exuded into the rhizosphere.
 Carbon-rich exudates from grass roots are the
“cheapest, most efficient and most beneficial form
of organic carbon for soil life.”
 Carbon Exudates and Root
Prune-off After Grazing

Photo: Dr. Christine

Jones

Carbon exudates from plant roots feed soil organisms, which

feed soil nutrients to plants.
 Rate of Growth and Volume of
Plant Roots Per Unit of Soil
Dictate Soil Carbon Increase
 Aim for big,
dense root
networks
growing as
rapidly as
possible…. Photo: Dr. Christine Jones
 The Microbial Bridge to
Humus.

 Fungi
 Bacteria
 Algae
 Protozoa
 Nematodes
 Micro-arthropods
Images: Dr. Elaine
 Earthworms Ingham, Soil
 Insects Foodweb, Inc.
 Small vertebrates
All of our hopes, plans and possibilities are
ultimately determined by the state of four
biosphere processes:

Solar Energy Flow

Biological Community Dynamics
Water Cycle
Mineral Cycle.
 Ecosystem services are generated and
regulated by topsoil, the product of the proper
functioning of the four biosphere processes.
  Regulating Services:
UN Millennium Ecosystem
– Air quality regulation
Assessment – Climate regulation – global
Ecosystem Services: – Climate regulation – regional and local
– Water regulation
– Nutrient cycling
 Food: – Erosion regulation
– Crops – Water purification, waste treatment,
– Livestock detoxification
– Capture fisheries – Ecosystem regulation of disease in
– Aquaculture humans, livestock and wildlife
– Wild foods – Pest regulation
 Fiber – Pollination
 Timber  Natural Hazard Management:
 Wood Protection from flood and fire
 Fuel  Cultural and Amenity Services
 Genetic resources  Spiritual and religious values
 Biochemicals and medicines  Aesthetic values
 New products and industry from
biodiversity  Recreation and Tourism
 Fresh water
The state of the biosphere processes is determined
by the state of the soil surface.
Desertification, Biodiversity Loss, The Water Crisis,
Climate Change, Disease Outbreaks, Food
Insecurity, (etc.) are all one issue.

Kachana Ranch, AU
Mega-herd Impact and The
Importance of Litter
The Global Carbon Cycle
 Current atmospheric CO2 Level:
385 Parts Per Million
Target: < 300 p.p.m.
 Amount of carbon to be relocated to soils: Around 200 billion metric
tons.
 Possible timeframe: 10-20 years.
 Cost of creating the foundation for solar civilization: Priceless.
 Just Kidding. The cost will be much lower than a single year (2005) of
gross world product – $59.38 trillion.
 If we estimate an agricultural multiplier effect of 7, which trickles UP
through the economy, the cost of the job turns into hundreds of trillions
of dollars worth of economic activity.
 Using substitution analysis, let’s add the full value of the ecosystem
services thus generated. Beyond Priceless.
 The 21st century version of the Civilian Conservation Corps will be a
global web of local topsoil formation by communities with intimate
knowledge of the land rebuilding watersheds and bioregions.
 Welcome to the transition to a solar civilization.
 Building the Solar Economy:
 Parity Pricing. Production plus profit.
 Charles Wilkens. Progressive Farmers of
Iowa. 1930’3
 The Stegnall Amendment, 1942.
 This time around, humus production is
paramount.
 The way out of the current economic crisis
is our opportunity to build a solar civilization.
 Strategies to Reduce
Atmospheric CO2

Strategies

Identify sinks and

Reduce fossil
sequestration
fuel consumption
rate

Renewable Aquatic
Improve efficiency Terrestrial Geologic
energy sources

IPCC Emissions Soils Plants

Reductions
Warning Label!
 IPCC: Emissions Reductions Are
Not Enough.
 In 2007 the IPCC reported that instantaneous and
"complete elimination of CO2 emissions is
estimated to lead to a slow decrease in
atmospheric CO2 of about 40 ppm over the 21st
century." In other words, elimination of fossil fuel
emissions alone has no leverage in decreasing
dangerously high concentrations of greenhouse
gases on a relevant schedule. Technology is not
enough.
 “Carbon Neutral” and “Offset” initiatives are
equivalent to complete emissions cessation and
thus are not enough.
 Keeling
Curve

Carbon Farming

Graphic: Peter Donovan

 Burning Biomass
 Biomass Burning is responsible for 40% of annual
emissions of C02. (NASA)
 Grassland burning is responsible for almost three
times the emissions of tropical forest burning.
 Replace burning of grasslands with grazing and
mega-herd impact and bank the carbon in the soil
instead.
 We must be conscious of current temperature
reductions due to global dimming from biomass
burning and fossil fuel combustion!
 The True Scale of “The Job”
 Reduce annual emissions from combustion to
levels that are matched by biological
sequestration.
 Relocate about 200 billion tons of carbon from the
atmosphere to the soils of the world by increasing
average soil organic matter levels about 2% to a
foot of depth on 5.1 billion hectares of agricultural
and grazing land. (I.e., from 2% to 4% organic
matter, assuming a conservative soil bulk density
of 1.2 g/cm3.)
 In the last fifty years the global regenerative
agriculture movement has discovered dozens of ways
to build topsoil quickly in every environment.
 We have the tools to do “The Job” today. There is no
good reason left on earth not to begin the job in
earnest.
 Carbon Farmers of America has synthesized all of
these tools into a dynamic curriculum and an analysis
and implementation process: The Carbon Farming
Toolbox.
 Almost any land manager can gain sufficient
understanding of these tools for practical
implementation with a few weeks of training, plus
support through ongoing, structured study groups.
The CFA Carbon Farming Toolbox: 34 strategies
for increasing soil health and organic matter.
 Allan Savory and Holistic
Management

 How does carbon cycle

in seasonally dry
environments?
Grass, Soil, Ungulates, Predators
have all co-evolved.
 The Big Idea: The primary tools on earth that can
build new topsoil are great herds of livestock
managed in a way that simulates the behavior of
the great wild herds in the presence of predators.
Mega-herds are the big guns of biomimicry.
 We can restore any terrestrial environment, brittle
or non-brittle. This will go far toward healing the
oceans.
 Multiply the hoof-print at left by
trillions to get a sense of what it
means to “reverse
desertification.”
Grazing is the single largest use
of land on earth.

Photo: Dan Dagget

Babbit Ranch
Keyline Soilbuilding: P.A. Yeomans
and Family
 1953 1958 1968 1971

1974 1994 2004 2005

Keyline Soil Development: Graze,
subsoil, water, recover, repeat.
A healthy future is built on deep, high-
carbon, covered topsoil.
 Re-thinking carbon pricing
 Carbon pricing needs to reflect the value of soil
carbon. We cannot continue to undervalue
carbon. Soil Carbon is worth many more times
than carbon credits generated by emissions
reductions or technological offsets.

Nutrients and H2O contained in 1 kg of humus = $.20

Rational price = $200/ton of C (Rattan Lal)
Add the value of the other ecosystem services
generated to estimate the full value.
 Where will the money come from?
 Carbon Markets are projected to become the
largest commodity market on earth.
 US: Cap and Trade in Legislation in 2009.
Regional Agreements (RGGI) will start up in 2009
 Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) has legs
globally. PES development in cooperation with
stakeholders is mandated in the current Farm Bill.
 2012 Farm Bill. Human self-interest suggests that
increasing soil carbon should be the central
concern.
 Proposal: Environmentalists,
graziers and farmers can form an
historic alliance.
 We carbon farmers will refine our skills and
put rapid topsoil formation into effect.
 Soil Carbon Monitoring is not an obstacle –
it is a key.
 Will you exercise your creativity and
lobbying power to help us to make soil
carbon the center of carbon markets, public
lands policy and the 2012 farm bill?
 Filling the Data Gap: Holistic
Research

CFA and Cornell Study.

David Pimentel, lead scientist.
Measuring Soil Carbon Increase and
Ecosystem Service Provision Under
Optimized Management of Grassland
Farms and Ranches
Purposes:
To measure the rate and volume of
increase of soil organic carbon to four
feet of depth on twenty grassland farms
and ranches over two years, quantify
and characterize changes to soil
physical, chemical and biological
properties and quantify attendant
ecosystem service provision.
 Please Join Us
 www.carbonfarmersofamerica.com

 
 www.soilcarboncoalition.org