06/30/08 Climate Change Impacts

Climate Change Impacts. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. We have all seen the results of climate change, whether you call it global warming or just a regular shift in weather patterns. But those changes are having an effect on the farmer & rancher and a new panel is taking a hard look at the impacts to producers. The panel will also look at the positive and potentially profitable role agriculture can play in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere in plants, thereby reducing the impact of emissions from other sources. COOK: What we're doing is exploring what the possibilities are and try and move ahead so that when a cap and trade system does come into play the farmers will have an opportunity to participate in basically marketing carbon that they may sequester from changing some of their agricultural practices. Kirk Cook is a hydrogeologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture. A number of questions have been asked by producers about how much this would cost them. COOK: The main thing everybody needs to understand about this effort is that it is a voluntary effort and the Legislature was quite clear on that in the language. That nobody is going to be mandated to do anything. This is going to be a choice by the land owner to make changes to his practices if he wants to be able to market carbon credits. Over the next four months, the panel will explore how climate change will impact growing conditions, yields, commodity prices, input costs and other factors. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.