Soil Carbon Sequestration Limits
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Farmers are being looked to as a potential solution for climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil. Great in concept, but how much carbon can farmland under cultivation really hold? Dr. Paige Stanley says it’s a good question, but we are currently nowhere near those limits.
Stanley… “Often I hear pushback on like “Oh well what’s the point sequestering carbon or like investing in all these resources into soil carbon sequestration if it’s going to saturate,” like if we’re going to cap out on it sometime soon. I think saturation is important to talk about. At the same time, it’s kind of this hypothetical limit, and I don’t think that it needs to hinder us from seizing this opportunity for soil carbon sequestration because we have such a deficit in where our agricultural soils are now, and this theoretical limit, you know, max capacity that they can hold in terms of soil carbon.”
Dr. Stanley believes saturation is possible, but mass adoption needs to take place before that becomes an issue.
Stanley… “I don’t deny that saturation can exist in some hypothetical terms. I also don’t think that it’s a realistic max that we’re going to need to worry about any time soon.”
Dr. Stanley is an expert in regenerative grazing, a form of high-intensity, short-duration grazing with the potential for increasing soil carbon sequestration.
