02/14/06 Getting paid someday for photosynthesis

Washington Ag February 14, 2006 Some no-till farmers in the northwest already are getting paid for sequestering carbon in their soil to help reduce greenhouse gases. Futurist Lowell Catlett of New Mexico State University told last week's Washington State Potato Conference the mere fact of photosynthesis may have economic value for producers in the future. In fact, Catlett says it is happening right now in Australia. Catlett: "Utilities in Sydney and Melbourne went to the farmers around them and said let us monitor your crops so that we can get a good estimate of the amount of air and chemicals that are bad that we find your plants scrub out of the atmosphere and how much oxygen they produce. And we are going to give you and ecological service fee if you allow us to monitor and prove what we have done to the air quality. Then they went to the Australian government and said we can prove we have improved our air quality in Sydney and Melbourne because we have entered in ecological service fee payments with farmers. Win, win, win." Catlett said it's the technology of the wireless world and remote sensing, or bubble world, that is helping making such opportunities possible. Sign up for the Conservation Security Program began this week in the Naches watershed and will run through March 31st. The Naches is the only watershed in Washington selected for the voluntary federal conservation program this year. I'm Bob Hoff.