Incentives for Climate Smart Agriculture
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
Our agricultural soils have the capacity to sequester massive amounts of carbon, but is it really financially feasible to do so? There’s a lot of money pouring into climate-smart agriculture, but not enough of it is making it to farmers. Plant science professor Dr. Steve Shirtliffe believes there needs to be a system in place that rewards farmers for their good work in this space.
Shirtliffe… “You know, I think if farmers have the appropriate incentives to do this, you know, the appropriate rewards to recognize good behavior and not be expected to just do stuff out of the goodness of their heart. You know climate change is a societal concern. I think society has to look at ways of, reimbursing farmers for good practices that can reduce contribution there. So is there a perfect system? No. Is any system better than no system? Yes. If we look at crop production, our major greenhouse gas contribution is nitrous oxide, and that predominantly comes from when you have low landscape areas in your field that get wet and you get nitrous oxide emission from denitrification. We're at a state now that we can actually start to manage that within a field.”
Dr. Shirtliffe believes agriculture has the potential to both reduce its own emissions and also provide ecosystem services if these incentives are put in place.
