Better Soil |
Improving soil
health in farmlands could capture extra carbon equivalent to the
planet-warming emissions generated by the transport sector, one of the
world's most polluting industries, experts said Tuesday.
Soil naturally
absorbs carbon from the atmosphere through a process known as
sequestration which not only reduce harmful greenhouse gases but also
creates more fertile soil.
Better soil
management could boost carbon stored in the top layer of the soil by up
to 1.85 gigatonnes each year, about the same as the carbon emissions of
transport globally, according to a study published in the journal
Nature.
"Healthier soils
store more carbon and produce more food," Louis Verchot of the
Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and one of
the study's authors, said in a statement.
"Investing in
better soil management will make our agricultural systems more
productive and resilient to future shocks and stresses."
Using compost,
keeping soil disturbance to a minimum and rotating crops to include
plants such as legumes can help restore organic matter in the soil,
Verchot told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The extra carbon
that could be stored from rejuvenated soil is equivalent to 3 to 7
billion tonnes of planet-warming carbon dioxide, he said.
"The U.S. emits
around 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. So (emissions)
equivalent of a major economy could be sequestered in soils each year
with changes in farming practices," he added.
The study found the
United States has the highest total annual potential to store carbon in
the soil, followed by India, China, Russia and Australia, if soil
management is improved.
Carbon
sequestration could be increased intensively in parts of southern
Africa, Ethiopia and Sudan too, Verchot said in a phone interview.
The Earth's soils
contain more carbon than the planet's atmosphere and vegetation
combined, but when land is overexploited or degraded, trapped carbon is
released back into the atmosphere, resulting in planet-warming
emissions.
About a third of
the world's soils are degraded because of soil erosion - the loss of the
topsoil by wind, rain or use of machinery - and other practices,
according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Agriculture,
forestry and changes in land use together produce 21 percent of global
greenhouse gas emissions, making them the second largest emitter after
the energy sector, FAO said.
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