The Interconnections Between Biodiversity and Climate

Photo Credit: Laurie Andrews, Jackson Hole Land Trust.

Climate change intertwined with the alarming loss of biodiversity we are tracking today represent some of the gravest challenges we face as a society.

Land trusts — which often work at the intersection of people and nature — are no strangers to these challenges. They know that climate change exacerbates risks to biodiversity and natural systems. And they know these same ecosystems play a key role in both climate adaptation and the fluctuation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Now there’s new scientific affirmations of those points.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a collaborative report on biodiversity and climate change. This work represents a hopeful step toward recognizing that only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem will we be able to maximize beneficial outcomes.

In short, the report warns that actions narrowly focused to fight climate change can harm nature and vice versa. But many measures exist that can make significant positive contributions in both areas. Among the most important actions identified in the report are:

  • stopping the loss and degradation of carbon- and species-rich ecosystems on land and in the ocean, especially forests, wetlands, peatlands, grasslands and savannahs, along with coastal ecosystems;
  • restoring carbon- and species-rich ecosystems, especially since restoration is among the cheapest and quickest nature-based climate mitigation measures to implement;
  • increasing sustainable agricultural and forestry practices to improve the land’s capacity to adapt to climate change, enhance biodiversity, increase carbon storage and reduce emissions; and
  • eliminating subsidies that support local and national activities harmful to biodiversity.

As a community, land conservationists have an opportunity and an obligation to highlight the interconnections between biodiversity and climate, along with their joint relationship with human activities and well-being. The importance of this work cannot be overstated.

If your organization is ready to use your voice to shine a light on this issue, check out the Land Trust Alliance’s new online climate communications guidance. This resource is designed to help your organization create and refine a climate change communication strategy that is right for you and your community. If you have and questions about it, please don’t hesitate to email me.

Kelly Watkinson is land and climate program manager at the Land Trust Alliance.

Originally published as a part of the Land Trust Alliance’s quarterly Re: Climate blog.

Why Greenhouse Gas Inventories Are Important for Natural and Working Lands — and How to Fix Them

This piece was jointly authored by Alex Rudee with the World Resources Institute and Jenn Phillips with the U.S. Climate Alliance and was originally published by the World Resources Institute.

Photo Credit: USDA NRCS Montana/Flickr

Inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a critical tool in the fight against climate change. GHG inventories allow entities like countries, states, cities and businesses to measure how much progress they are making toward meeting emissions-reduction targets, such as those set under the Paris Climate Agreement. Climate policies at all levels of government are also informed by data in GHG inventories. 

The U.S. Climate Alliance has facilitated ambitious state-level action on climate change since 2017, when the United States government announced its intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. To support states’ technical needs in building and implementing these climate action plans — including by developing robust GHG inventories — the U.S. Climate Alliance has convened an “Impact Partnership” of nonprofit organizations with relevant expertise, including WRI. Through that partnership, WRI and the U.S. Climate Alliance have published a guide for states to develop and improve their GHG inventories with an eye toward one particular sector that has often been shortchanged: natural and working lands (NWL). But to understand why a state-level guide specific to land-based GHG inventories is needed, it’s important to first know what a GHG inventory is, why inventories are produced and how they are created.

Inventory Basics: What, Why and How

1.    What is a GHG inventory?

An inventory accounts for all human-caused emissions and removals of GHGs associated with a specific entity. The inventory essentially acts as a climate change balance sheet, tracking the total volume of GHG emitted from sources like fossil fuel consumption and agricultural production alongside the volume of GHG removed by sequestration in plants and soils or through technological means. Good inventories transparently report their data sources and methodologies so the calculations and assumptions that underlie GHG estimates are clear. Typically, entities produce GHG inventories annually or on some other regular schedule to monitor changes in their GHG emissions and removals over time.

2.    Why produce a GHG inventory?

As the saying goes, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Measuring GHG emissions and removals through GHG inventories is therefore a necessary first step to manage our collective carbon footprint. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has required participating nations, including the United States, to produce and submit annual GHG inventories since 1997 to measure progress toward international climate goals. In more recent years, many U.S. states have voluntarily published their own GHG inventories to inform development of state climate action plans and provide accountability for their emissions reduction goals.

With the U.S. government and the U.S. Climate Alliance’s recent commitment to reduce collective net GHG emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve overall net-zero GHG emissions no later than 2050, the accuracy and comprehensiveness of these inventories has never been more paramount. Achieving net-zero at both the federal and state levels will require concerted action — not only to reduce emissions throughout the economy, but also to increase carbon removals, including the management of natural and working lands. 

NWL, which include forests, croplands, grasslands, wetlands and urban trees and soils, make up the only sector in the U.S. that removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits, reducing total U.S. emissions by nearly 800 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, or about 12% of U.S. gross emissions. This increase in land-based carbon storage, which overwhelmingly comes from forest growth, offsets the 10% of gross U.S. emissions from agricultural production. Emissions from agricultural production, which includes soil fertilization, manure management, enteric fermentation and other sources related to crop and livestock cultivation, are typically considered separately from NWL in GHG inventories.

With additional investment in conservation, restoration and land management, the amount of carbon removed by NWL in the U.S. can grow significantly, offsetting a greater portion of U.S. gross emissions and moving the U.S. closer to meeting its ambitious GHG reduction targets.

3.    How are Natural and Working Lands included in GHG inventories?

Unlike GHG emissions from fossil fuel combustion, which are easily tracked through publicly reported energy use data, emissions and removals from NWL are more difficult to measure. These emissions and removals are occurring constantly over millions of acres due to farming and forestry operations alongside natural ecosystem carbon cycles, making universal monitoring very challenging. In many cases, scientists are also still refining our understanding of how land management practices like forest restoration or conservation tillage impact GHG flows in those environments. Therefore, GHG inventories typically rely on sample data to estimate the area of NWL within certain classifications and GHG models or approximate “emission factors” to estimate GHG emissions and removals as a function of area. 

GHG inventories typically rely on sample-based measurements to estimate carbon sequestration in forests. Photo by Lance Cheung for Forest Service, USDA/Flickr.

These challenges illustrate why estimates of land-based emissions and removals in GHG inventories are typically much more uncertain than energy emissions. Contributors to the uncertainty include:

  • Timeliness of data inputs (how long ago data were collected).
  • Spatial and temporal resolution of inventory data (how finely data can be mapped over space and time).
  • Gaps in inventory coverage (which sources of emissions and removals are omitted).
  • Error in GHG models and emission factors (how accurately the calculations mirror real-world emissions and removals).

These challenges are compounded at the state level, where most states lack the resources to develop their own inventories and have had to depend on federal data and tools with significant limitations. Many states, for example, use the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) State Inventory Tool (SIT), which applies the same methods and data sources used for EPA’s National GHG Inventory at the state level. However, much of the data on land-based emissions and removals used in the National Inventory is not available at the state level, so SIT has relied on older and less accurate data to fill gaps. SIT also does not publish measures of uncertainty. For these reasons, many states have opted to leave NWL out of their GHG inventories entirely, while others that do include SIT estimates for that sector have cautioned against relying on them for goal-setting or policymaking purposes.

How to Improve GHG Inventories for Natural and Working Lands

Fortunately, a mix of current and emerging datasets and technologies can help states improve their estimates of GHG emissions and removals from NWL. These inventory improvement options have the potential to not only address specific limitations of SIT, but could also provide even more accurate and granular information than the National Inventory. More accurate, more transparent and higher resolution estimates of NWL emissions and removals can help state governments set robust climate targets specifically for NWL in addition to measuring progress toward existing goals, informing new climate policies and underlying plans for climate-smart land management.

Most options for states to improve the NWL data in their inventories follow one or both of two strategies. Either the state can collect new field measurement data, for example by adding to the Forest Service’s network of forest inventory plots or by measuring carbon in soil samples; or the state can use remote sensing tools like LiDAR and satellite imagery to complement existing data from field measurements. 

All inventory improvements come with costs, so states will need to prioritize improvements based on their potential impact, policy relevance and feasibility. WRI’s Guide to NWL Inventory Improvements walks states through available options for improving inventory data for each land use type included in a NWL inventory along with factors to consider in deciding where to prioritize limited state resources.

Several U.S. states have already begun to implement innovations in their NWL inventories. In March 2021, Maryland committed to replace forest data from SIT with a new inventory method that uses high-resolution LiDAR and satellite imagery to model forest carbon over time, based on research conducted by the University of Maryland and WRI under a grant from the U.S. Climate Alliance. Across the country, California, Oregon and Washington have all worked with the Forest Service to develop state-specific estimates of carbon in wood products, allowing them to update the decades-old data in SIT. Even farther west, Hawai’i partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to create its first NWL inventory, as most of the federal datasets that underlie SIT did not include data for Hawai’i.

These are just a few of the exciting innovations states are pursuing to improve their inventories. But many other states lack the resources or capacity to take on their own improvement projects and the need for more national coordination and consistent, quality GHG estimation tools and NWL datasets that can be utilized by every state remains. Therefore, it’s clear that federal investment is paramount. Recent federal efforts, like the publication of new Forest Service research in 2020 that quantified forest carbon emissions and removals at the state level, help move the ball forward — but there is still much room for improvement.

3 Ways the Federal Government Can Help Improve State Inventories

The Guide to NWL Inventory Improvements identified three key needs across states, spanning the key NWL systems of forests, agricultural soils and wetlands, where the federal government would be best positioned to lead inventory improvements. With President Biden restoring the United States to a leadership role on climate action hours after becoming president, these opportunities offer common sense steps to advance the role of NWL in climate action plans at all levels of government.

1. Develop a national remote sensing-based forest and land use inventory.

The National GHG Inventory and SIT rely on data from the Forest Service’s Forest Inventory & Analysis program (FIA), which is among the most comprehensive forest monitoring systems in the world, but was not designed to meet current demands for precise carbon data at a variety of scales. Using federal data products like Landsat and GEDI, the federal government could complement FIA with remote sensing data to map and model carbon emissions and removals across the landscape, reducing uncertainty in forest carbon estimates. 

2. Monitor soil carbon through national field networks.

Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is currently modeled, not measured, to calculate GHG estimates in the National Inventory and SIT, leading to uncertainty of over 1,000% nationally for some soil carbon removal estimates. Regular, systematic collection of soil carbon field measurements through the federal National Resources Inventory (NRI) could help refine models and reduce this uncertainty dramatically. The National Academies of Sciences has estimated the cost of this endeavor at just $5 million per year.

3. Develop a national spatial inventory of GHG emissions in wetlands.

Wetlands are among the least-understood contributors to GHG emissions from NWL. No consistent data on wetland GHG emissions exist at the state level, and even the National Inventory does not account for GHG emissions from most terrestrial, or freshwater, wetlands. The federal government could improve this understanding by creating a high-resolution spatial dataset to monitor changes in wetland extent, vegetation and management, incorporating existing data from the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) and National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) where relevant, and pairing it with a network of field plots to derive regionally-specific emission factors for different wetland types. 

Helping States Lead the Way on GHG Inventories for Natural and Working Lands

For the last four years, states have been forging ahead with climate action even as the federal government rolled back environmental regulations and withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. States in the U.S. Climate Alliance have led the way in linking land management to climate change mitigation through the NWL Challenge, but they need better data and inventory methods in order to act boldly and effectively. Some states have jumped out ahead by experimenting with new methods for carbon monitoring in NWL, but federal action has the unique ability to “lift all boats” when it comes to data quality and consistency. As it now re-engages on climate change at home and abroad, the federal government has an opportunity to put wind under the wings of state leadership by investing in the tools they need to monitor and manage land for a climate-friendly future.

Alex Rudee is a Manager for U.S. Natural Climate Solutions at World Resources Institute. Jenn Phillips is a Senior Policy Advisor for Natural and Working Lands and Resilience at U.S. Climate Alliance. Both Alex and Jenn serve on the U.S. Nature4Climate steering committee.

Natural Climate Solutions: A Win-Win Solution for Our Environment and Our Economy

Coastal and oyster restoration along the coast of Rhode Island Photo Credit: TNC

There is growing recognition in the United States that the actions required to spare us from the worst impacts of climate change can also serve as a powerful engine for job creation and economic recovery. The economic benefits of decarbonizing our energy and transportation sectors are relatively clear – large-scale efforts to install wind turbines and solar arrays, build electric vehicle charging stations and cap leaking gas wells will requires a large workforce, potentially creating employment opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Natural Climate Solutions — conservation, restoration and improved land management strategies that remove carbon dioxide from the air – can also play a large role in tackling climate change. Indeed, natural and working lands have the potential to reduce overall emissions in the United States by up to 30 percent. Like other climate solutions, these actions can also serve as a powerful mechanism for restoring our economy by creating jobs, generating new sources of income for farm and forest owners and managers, and providing a wide range of economic benefits to underserved and frontline communities across America.

The Blaney family farm in Albany, Ohio. Photo Credit: Alex Snyder/TNC

In addition to the direct economic benefits of Natural Climate Solutions, they provide significant indirect economic benefits by also protecting water quality, improving soil health, increasing resilience to floods and drought and providing crucial habitat for wildlife. When one considers the significant benefits that Natural Climate Solutions provide to people and nature, it is clear that they are a win-win solution for our environment and our economy.

The U.S. Nature4Climate coalition has reviewed reports, case studies, and research about the economic value of Nature Climate Solutions. We hope the collective weight of this information will increase public awareness of the numerous benefits of Natural Climate Solutions, elevating these solutions as an integral part of the overall strategy to combat climate change and restore our economy. Over the next month, U.S. Nature4Climate and our coalition partners will highlight the potential of Natural Climate Solutions to help spur an equitable and robust economic recovery in the United States.

Our campaign is themed around the following facts:

  • Investment in Natural Climate Solutions creates jobs: Planting trees in both rural and urban areas helps create good new jobs while pulling carbon out of the air; these projects also help stimulate the outdoor recreation economy. For example, investing $4-4.5 billion dollars in tree planting can create up to 150,000 jobs. Environmental restoration programs focused on restoring coastal, forest and grassland ecosystems can create up to 40 jobs for each million dollars invested.  
  • Natural Climate Solutions can serve as a mechanism for advancing equity, particularly in urban communities:  Urban forestry programs are a particularly powerful force for reducing inequality in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.  Recent research indicates widespread inequality in tree cover between low-income and high-income neighborhoods. A program to plant 31.4 million urban trees a year can create nearly 230,000 new jobs. Urban trees can also reduce home energy costs up to 7%, while also reducing health care costs.
  • Natural Climate Solutions provide new sources of income for owners and managers of farms and forests:  Farmers and foresters across America want to be a part of the solution to climate change – and in many cases, already are.  Adoption of soil health practices have been proven to increase income and lower costs for farmers over time. Robust and credible carbon markets can also provide a new source of income for farmers and forest owners, while helping companies meet ambitious sustainability goals.

Please visit our new campaign page, www.usnature4climate.org/win-win, and the U.S. Nature4Climate blog to learn more about the powerful role Natural Climate Solutions can play in our economic recovery.

Nathan Henry is the Project Manager for U.S. Nature4Climate.

Bringing the Investment Community and Farmers Together to Transform U.S. Agriculture

The next decade requires unprecedented leadership if we are to meet the challenges of the next #30Harvests and tackle climate change. Farmers and ranchers are among the most at risk to climate change but also steward the potential to cycle carbon and sequester it.

That’s why more than ever they’re using climate-smart practices to make their businesses and the planet more resilient. But bringing those solutions to scale requires far greater resources than we’ve deployed to date. That’s where transformative investment comes into the picture.

I am proud to announce the launch of a new USFRA report, “Transformative Investment in Climate-Smart Agriculture: Unlocking the potential of our soils to help the U.S. achieve a net-zero economy.” Together with our partners from The Mixing BowlCroatan Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, we set out the opportunity to work with the financial sector to co-create, co-innovate and bring much-needed investment to sustainable agriculture.

Investors are waking up to that possibility. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) funds are growing at $2 trillion per year. Yet, as we discovered in producing this report, agriculture is typically not part of these ESG portfolios. For example, in Q3 of 2020 alone, there was $10 billion in corporate support for green bond issuance and agriculture was not included at the table. That is a huge missed opportunity, with agriculture as a key sector that can contribute to positive impact.

How big is that potential? There is some $972 billion flowing annually into the agriculture value chain. That was an eye-opener. We didn’t realize all the different ways that private sector investment is influencing and interacting with our farmers, but in order to achieve our goals we need to encourage transformative investment from the finance sector towards our shared goals. Innovative financial mechanisms like green bonds and community finance could help farmers and ranchers tap into that capital.

New forms of investment would allow agriculture to realize the vision of enabling a net-zero economy, and the promise of carbon drawdown, by scaling up climate-smart agriculture practices. Just as the renewable energy sector benefited from renewable energy credits and tradeable credits, and innovative fintech strategies, the ag sector could benefit from the same approach. And investors benefit from a more diversified ESG portfolio.

There are signs things are changing. We are excited that the U.S. SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, in 2020 for the first time named sustainable natural resources/agriculture as one of the top three specific areas of interest for money managers and institutional investors.

This is an encouraging sign. Agriculture has both the innovation and the people-based commitment and values to act on the UN Sustainable Development Goals for the next decade.

But we can’t do it without addressing the economic equation of the sustainability conversation.

This report is an initial examination of what will be a long-term effort to bring farmers and ranchers and the financial community into productive conversation that leads to real solutions.

As a call to action to leaders in the financial sector, we’d like to see them:

  • Recognize that agriculture can be a solution to both society and the planet, on all levels of the Triple Bottom Line: social, environmental and economic.
  • Get involved in the Decade of Agriculture, where the urgency of acting on climate change demands all hands on deck.
  • Advance the financial innovation necessary to meet the broad needs of climate-smart agriculture
  • Join farmers and ranchers on a journey to understand how agriculture can become part of their broad investment portfolio to enable a U.S. net-zero economy.

If we get this right, we could put the U.S. agriculture sector on the road to becoming the first net negative GHG emissions sector in the economy for our future. And that’s a huge win for everyone.

Erin Fitzgerald is the Chief Executive Officer at U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action.

The Math is in: Soil Health Practices Produce Real Return on Investment

Photo Credit: American Farmland Trust

Our nation’s farmers and ranchers care deeply about the land. They want to use practices that improve soil health and protect water quality like no-till or strip till, cover crops, and nutrient management.

But, farming is a business like any other. If the numbers don’t add up, it’s hard to make improvements that are good for the environment. Farming is a particularly challenging business and investing in new things can often seem too risky when you are hanging on by a thin margin.

That’s why I’m so excited about the release of new American Farmland Trust research that proves soil health benefits go right to farmers’ bottom line. AFT and the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, or NRCS, released nine two-page case studies that show healthier soil on farmland brings economic benefits to farmers and environmental benefits to both farmers and society.

With support from a competitive NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant, AFT staff interviewed “soil health successful” farmers about the costs and benefits they attribute to their soil health practices. Featured are two corn-soybean farmers from Illinois and Ohio; a farmer with diversified crop rotation from New York; and an almond grower from California whose soil health practices included conservation cover, mulching, and nutrient management techniques like fertigation and compost application.

The case studies quantify key economic factors like increased crop yields, decreased input costs, and increases in annual net income experienced by the four farmers who have invested in practices that build soil health. The economic results are impressive:

  • Increased crop yields: All four farmers saw increased crop yields averaging 12%, ranging from 2% to 22%
  • Increased profits: The three crop farmers saw an average increase in net income of $42 per acre per year and the almond grower’s net income increased on average $657 per acre per year
  • Significant Return on Investment (ROI): ROI for all four farmers averaged 176%, ranging from 35% to 343%

The farmers also report their soil health practices helped them solve erosion problems on their fields. To model the water quality and climate outcomes from soil health practices, AFT used USDA’s Nutrient Tracking Tool and USDA’s COMET-Farm Tool on one selected field in each farm (ranging from 11 to 110 acres). The environmental outcomes were equally impressive. On average, the soil health practices are resulting in:

  • A 54% reduction in nitrogen losses;
  • An 81% reduction in phosphorus losses;
  • An 85% reduction in sediment losses; and
  • A 379% reduction in total greenhouse gasses, on the selected fields.

Considering these findings, we hope that farmers across the country will:

  • Try the soil health practices knowing they are likely to pay off
  • Reach out to their local NRCS field office for technical or financial support
  • Approach their existing landowners to discuss implementation of soil health practices on rented land and establish leasing terms that will better share the risks and rewards of improved soil health
  • Approach new landlords about acquiring new fields and offer the quantitative evidence that improved soil health will offer a high return on investment on the landowner’s fields
  • Should farmers be successful in securing new fields, we hope they will then use the case studies with their bankers to secure additional financing for the farm expansion

We hope that fellow conservation partners in the public sector (e.g., NRCS, Extension, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and non-profit organizations, etc.) and the private sector (e.g., cover crop seed dealers, no-till and strip-till equipment dealers, ag retailers, etc.) will use these case studies to help their clients better understand the benefits and costs of adopting soil health practices.

Visit www.farmland.org/soilhealthcasestudies or sign-up for email updates from AFT for the latest on soil health and more!

Dr. Michelle Perez is the water initiative director at American Farmland Trust.

Cargill and Soil Health Institute find farmer experience with soil health pays off. Here’s how.

This blog originally appeared on Environmental Defense Fund’s Growing Returns blog.

Photo Credit: Liz George/TNC

Findings from a recent Soil Health Institute study add to growing evidence that soil health practices can provide financial benefits to farmers.

The Soil Health Institute, with support from Cargill, interviewed 100 farmers across nine states to measure the farm budget impacts of soil health practices.

“I believe this work is a critical area and critical question that we need to better address as we look at scaling up of soil health principles,” said Ryan Sirolli, Global Row Crop Sustainability Director at Cargill, during a webinar hosted by the Soil Health Institute.

The Institute used a partial budget analysis, asking farmers about yield changes and specific cost changes directly associated with adopting soil health practices.

“It was important that they have experience”

The farmers participating in the study mostly produced corn and soybeans and utilized conservation tillage and cover crop soil health practices — all having more than five years’ experience with these practices.

“We felt it was important that they have experience in these soil health practices for at least five years, because it often takes some time before seeing benefits with these practices,” said Dr. John Shanahan, agronomist and project manager at the Soil Health Institute.

Photo Credit: Isaac Shaw

It turns out that experience pays off.

Across the 100 participating farms, the Soil Health Institute found that net income increased for 85% of farmers growing corn and 88% of farmers growing soybeans.

Sixty-seven percent of the participating farmers reported increased yields due to soil health practices. Adopting soil health practices also reduced average corn production costs by $24 per acre and soybean production costs by $17 per acre.

Overall, adopting soil health practices increased net farm income by $52 per acre for corn and $45 per acre for soybeans.

Still, adopting soil health practices like cover crops looks different on every farm.

Cover crops in particular take time

A recent study by Environmental Defense Fund, Soil Health Partnership and K·Coe Isom found that profitable cover crop adoption takes time to achieve.

Farmers with more than five years’ experience with cover crops had lower costs and greater net profits than farmers with less than five years of experience with cover crops, showing that adopting cover crops profitably can take time.

A key takeaway from the EDF and Soil Health Institute studies is that soil health practices like cover crops can be profitable over time, but scaling the adoption of these practices beyond the early adopters will require financial support across the first few years of adoption.

Broader resilience benefits from healthy soils

Another important finding from the Soil Health Institute study is that 97% of the participating farmers reported increased crop resilience to extreme weather from adopting soil health practices.

These resilience benefits support findings from a recent research paper that documented a positive relationship between soil organic matter, higher yields and lower yield losses under drought conditions.

Building crop resilience under extreme weather like droughts could be an especially important benefit of soil health practices, since farmers can incur significant financial losses when facing severe drought conditions.

To learn more about the Soil Health Institute study, visit soilhealthinstitute.org/economics.

Vincent Gauthier is a Working Lands Research Analyst for Environmental Defense Fund.

Sustainable Farming: Is There a Payoff?

Originally published by U.S. Farmers & Ranchers In Action. Read the article on their website here.

Farmers like Jared Hagert in North Dakota and the Schlichting family in Minnesota are finding good reasons to adopt sustainable farming practices. The emphasis on crop diversity and healthy soils is not just good for the environment — it adds to the bottom line, too.

Hagert is a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer from Northwood, North Dakota. “I believe farming rests on a three-legged stool of economics, conservation and social responsibility. Being sustainable means you serve all three,” he says.

Most farmers understand the first two legs — economics and conservation. The two support each other, Hagert says. For instance, he makes widespread use of cover crops in his fields to protect the soil and nutrients through the off-season. Rye seeded in early September provides another growing root mass at a time of year when soils often lie bare.

The economic payoff comes in several ways. The biomass mat on the soil surface suppresses early weed competition the following spring, potentially eliminating one application of herbicide and saving him $25 per acre or more.

Cover crops use up excess surface moisture in the spring, helping to dry out soils. “They work like a subsurface drain tile, getting us in the field quicker,” explains Hagert.

Some deep-rooted cover crops, like radishes, also help break up compacted soil. The payoff there is in eliminating a trip with a chisel plow (a farm implement used for deep tillage) to break up compaction, which saves at least a gallon of diesel fuel per acre.

Variable-rate technology is another way he achieves economic and conservation sustainability. “We split most of our fields into three to five zones, based on the data we have collected,” he says. “We put more nutrients in the zones where it will maximize the return on investment.” Other zones get less, which prevents overapplication and saves money.

The third leg of Hagert’s farm stool — social responsibility — is something farmers don’t often talk about, but something many practice. He breaks it down like this: Farmers must be good citizens and adhere to government laws and regulations, such as safety protocols. They also must be aware of the people around them, including employees, neighbors, business suppliers and even consumers, respecting the needs of all. And they should maintain a “giving back” mentality that goes along with being a contributor to society.

Photo Credit: Andrew Kornylak

He thinks his farm’s use of modern technology contributes to its social responsibility. “We have the ability to show you when we sprayed or planted or applied fertilizer, what products we used, at what rates, and more,” he says. “Not everyone will want to see all that data, but someone might, and we want to be transparent.”

Is there a payoff? Hagert thinks these efforts have the potential to let them create a supply loop back to the farm. “The documentation of what we did and when we did it could be a marketing point for our farm,” he says.

He also points to the variety of ways farmers are involved in communities, such as county boards, schools, volunteer groups and commodity organizations. “They give us an opportunity to share about our farms in a positive way. It’s hard to put a dollar value to it, but I think it’s part of sustainability.”

Prairie Farms in central Minnesota is managed by Richard Schlichting and his daughter, Jocelyn Schlichting Hicks. Their goal is to operate the farm in such a way that they can do it forever, Hicks says. “It’s doing things to improve the land, being mindful of the natural things around you and protecting the water, too, Schlichting adds. “We’ve been doing sustainable practices for over 30 years, and we’re still here.”

They, too, start with cover crops as a key part of their sustainability practices. They usually seed cereal rye in the fall after harvesting potatoes or kidney beans, and the rye grows until the next planting season. They grow the seed rye themselves, and it costs about $12 per acre to grow and seed. They do it in combination with other fieldwork to limit field traffic and cost.

Their three-crop rotation — kidney beans, potatoes and corn — is also an integral part of their sustainability. Corn in the rotation breaks up the life cycle of some pests, particularly potato bugs, and saves pesticide expense.

Fertilizer applications are done in smaller shots throughout the season to reduce the potential for nutrient runoff or leaching into water sources. It also often saves money. Some fields get four or more fertilizer applications during the growing season, usually through the irrigation system.

“If I had to decide in June what total nitrogen to put on a corn field, I’d probably put on 100% of what I thought it needed, to make sure the crop doesn’t run out,” Schlichting says. “But with our system, the last application can be delayed to tasseling time; we decide then whether we need it or not. Sometimes that means we cut our nitrogen applications by at least 10%.”

More recently, Prairie Farms added automatic row shutoff technology (which eliminates double-planted areas) to its planters and section control (which reduces overapplication of spray) for all input applications to reduce input quantity and cost. All of their fields are irrigated, and the row shutoffs are especially valuable in the field corners where the irrigation water doesn’t reach. In sandy soils, those corners yield very poorly, essentially wasting that seed. “In the first year with the row shutoffs, we saved 50 bags of corn seed,” Hicks says. “That can pay for a lot of technology.”

It’s another reason the family says sustainable farming doesn’t cost; it pays. “It adds to our profitability,” Schlichting says.

Ambitious Climate Legislation in Massachusetts Sets the Bar for Other States

Bass Hole boardwalk in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. Photo Credit: Katherine Gendreau.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. Its impacts can be seen clearly as sea levels continue to rise, heat waves become more frequent and storms intensify. To help avoid some of the worst impacts yet to come, immediate action is needed to not only stop further greenhouse gas emissions, but also to remove the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is already in the air.

In March, Massachusetts passed An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy, a groundbreaking and ambitious law that sets a net zero emissions goal–the new global standard–and requires the Commonwealth to decarbonize our economy by decreasing our use of fossil fuels and harnessing nature to draw carbon from the air.

“The new law reflects Governor Charlie Baker’s and the state legislature’s recognition that climate change impacts are touching down in the Commonwealth’s communities today, and we need to address the causes and effects to protect our future,” says Steve Long, director of government relations for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Massachusetts. “Once again, Massachusetts policymakers have modeled bipartisan collaboration and leadership to address climate change that should serve as inspiration for policymakers on the national stage.”

The law also provides a robust toolkit of policies and strategies—such as requirements and incentives to reduce emissions from energy production, transportation, and buildings—and ensures accountability by setting goals for interim carbon emissions reductions between now and 2050.

TNC hosted a Natural Climate Solutions briefing for legislators at the Massachusetts State House in 2019. From left to right: Emily Myron, Laura Marx, State Representative Smitty Pignatelli, State Representative Bradley Jones, State Senator Bruce Tarr, Kurt Gaertner of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Steve Long. Photo Credit: Loren Dowd/TNC

TNC led the advocacy for the inclusion of Natural Climate Solutions in the legislation. As the bill moved through the Senate and House of Representatives, we heard bipartisan support for the benefits of Natural Climate Solutions. During Senate floor debate, Senator Jo Comerford (D-Northampton) said, “We will not achieve the reductions we need without carbon sequestration and storage. It is our Commonwealth that has the lungs of New England.” And House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading) noted that, “A comprehensive, multi-faceted approach is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Using forests and other natural and working lands to promote carbon sequestration is one of the most effective ways for the state to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”  

Natural Climate Solutions are strategies that protect, restore, and better manage natural and working lands—such as forests, farms, and wetlands—to remove carbon from the air and store it long term. We believe this law is the first in the nation to require the state to set goals for both reducing emissions from and increasing sequestration by natural and working lands, and to create a plan to achieve those goals.

Northampton Tree. Photo Credit: Lauren Owens Lambert.

Massachusetts’ forests currently remove the equivalent of nearly five million metric tons of CO2 from the air each year, an amount equal to nearly seven percent of our carbon emissions. Natural Climate Solutions have the potential to remove an additional one to two million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year across the state—about the same amount of carbon as is emitted by 435,000 cars annually.

In addition to capturing carbon, implementing Natural Climate Solutions can bring communities many other benefits, as well. For example, protecting forests and wetlands helps clean our water and air and provides habitat for wildlife. Better managing farmland ensures healthy soils and can increase agricultural yields. And restoring wetlands and salt marshes helps reduce flood risks and enhances our fisheries. In urban areas, tree planting and creating green space can reduce the heat island effect, lower energy use in nearby buildings and reduce air pollution to improve public health.

As we move forward, it is also critical to ensure a just transition to a decarbonized economy and address the disproportionate impacts of climate change felt by underserved and overburdened communities. The new law includes important environmental justice provisions designed to enhance review of the health and cumulative impacts of projects proposed in communities with environmental justice populations and to ensure that residents have reasonable access and information to meaningfully engage in the public processes concerning those projects. TNC was proud to support environmental justice partners in advocating for these protections.

“The requirement in the new law that cumulative impacts be considered reflects the reality that the health and well-being of our communities and our environment are inextricably linked,” says Eugenia Gibbons, Massachusetts director of climate policy at Health Care Without Harm. “The environmental justice protections mark an important step towards ensuring that communities historically excluded from decision making that has left them burdened by environmental harm have reasonable access to information and an opportunity to engage meaningfully going forward.” 

At the same time TNC was advocating for the climate legislation, they led a working group on the state’s climate council to inform the science and policy recommendations for natural climate solutions in the Commonwealth’s 2030 Clean Energy and Climate Plan. The plan prioritizes the state’s action for the next ten years and will guide implementation of strategies to meet emissions reductions targets in the law. TNC collaborated with climate justice partners to jointly develop a policy framework and recommend Natural Climate Solutions strategies for equity and justice. 

Governor Baker signing Next-Generation Road Map legislation.

“The legislation signed by Governor Baker is supported by a comprehensive, science-based analysis with significant stakeholder input that took place over a two-year period, culminating with the Administration’s 2050 Decarbonization Roadmap and Clean Energy and Climate Plan,” says Kathleen Theoharides, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary for Massachusetts. “As we move toward implementing this nation-leading legislation, including important provisions around natural working lands and protecting our environmental justice communities, the Baker-Polito Administration remains committed to achieving our climate goals in an equitable manner that protects our most vulnerable residents.”

TNC in Massachusetts could not have realized our accomplishments without a team effort that provided an effective combination of policy and science, which included Steve Long, Laura Marx, forest ecologist and Emily Myron, policy manager.

An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy is formative legislation that could be emulated across the U.S., bringing people together across the aisle and leading to important and impactful changes for the future of people and nature.

Loren Dowd is a Marketing and Communications Manager at The Nature Conservancy.

It Starts with a Seed: Producing High Quality Native Seed for Restoration in the Willamette Valley

Oregon iris production field. Photo Credit: Institute for Applied Ecology.

Historically, the Willamette Valley of Oregon was lush with fields of purple camas (Camassia quamash) and rosy seablush (Plectritis congesta) in the spring and western goldenrod (Solidago lepida) highlighted by the last rays of sun in the fall. Today this prairie habitat is among the most endangered ecosystems in North America with over 90% of upland and wet prairie habitat converted to other uses. Consequently, there has been a drastic decline of native plant and wildlife species dependent on these habitats. Conservation practitioners have been actively restoring this critical habitat for decades but have been challenged to find high quality, diverse native seed for their projects.

Grassland restoration provides a whole suite of benefits for both people and nature. Grasslands provide habitat for wildlife and pollinators, and they improve water quality and stabilize soil, which reduces runoff and erosion. Grassland restoration is also an important nature-based solution for addressing climate change by storing carbon in soil and root systems. Recent research indicates that restoring 5 million acres of marginal cropland to grasslands has the potential to store an additional 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year – the equivalent of removing 1.9 million cars from the road each year.

In 2012 the Willamette Valley Native Plant Partnership was created to help solve this problem. The Partnership was formed by 21 restoration organizations and native plant producers who had a vision to create a partnership that would cooperatively fund and produce plant materials for use in restoration, revegetation, and mitigation throughout the region. The main goal was to create a supply of seed that was genetically diverse and ecologically appropriate. Research shows that using genetically diverse, locally sourced native plant materials increases establishment and overall success of restoration projects.

To achieve this goal, the approach taken was to collect seed from many source populations throughout the Willamette Valley to capture a broad genetic base for each species. This seed was then used to establish farm fields of high priority native species so partners could purchase seed for use in their restoration projects. Within its first year the Partnership built an organizational infrastructure, hired a seasonal seed collection crew, and entered its first two species into production – slender cinquefoil (Potentilla gracilis) and western goldenrod (Solidago lepida var. salebrosa).

Restored prairie at Herbert Farm just outside of Corvallis. Photo Credit: Institute for Applied Ecology.

Since its beginnings nearly a decade ago, the Partnership has been striving to represent the vision of the Plant Conservation Alliance Native Seed Strategy – “the right seed in the right place at the right time”. Over six seasons, crews have collected 72 pounds of seed from 27 native species from hundreds of wild populations scattered throughout the Willamette Valley. Now, 21 species have been put into production which has resulted in a yield of over 3,100 pounds of native seed. Approximately two-thirds of this seed has been distributed to partners and spread in prairie habitats throughout the ecoregion. These native seeds will grow into mature plants and help in restoring function to these endangered ecosystems.

Programs like the Willamette Valley Native Plant Partnership play a key role in advancing these restoration efforts. Ensuring that landowners and managers working to restore grasslands have access to “the right seed at the right place at the right time” significantly increases the chance of achieving successful and enduring outcomes. This, in turn, helps unlock the carbon storage potential of these restored grasslands, while also ensuring the newly established plants are resilient to changes over time resulting from climate change.

Lessons for Reforestation Programs

According to a new study released by The Nature Conservancy, US Forest Service, academic researchers and American Forests  , an ambitious program to reforest lands that were historically forested in the U.S. will require 3 billion tree seedlings a year – a 2.3-fold increase in the number of seedlings currently produced. This will require new investment in collecting and storing a broader diversity of genetically appropriate seeds, increasing nursery capacity to grow seedlings, and in the development of a trained workforce to collect seeds, plant seedlings and ensure their successful growth.

The approach taken by the Willamette Valley Native Plant Partnership offers a good model for providing the market certainty to diversify the seed stock for reforestation and spur new investments in nursery capacity. By identifying sources of genetically appropriate seeds, hiring and training workers to collect and sort seeds, and providing nurseries with the seeds necessary to support reforestation efforts, we can increase the chance that these efforts will succeed.

This article was adapted from an article that first appeared on the Pacific Birds website.

Alexis Larsen is the Native Seed Partnership Coordinator at the Institute for Applied Ecology.