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A new U.S. Department of Agriculture office to assess environmental benefits of agriculture and determine their value for carbon credit trading has been announced by Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.
The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and a board to assist in the development of technical guidelines for values will promote markets for ecosystem services, according to Schafer. There will also be a public advisory board.
“Our nation’s farms, ranches and forests provide goods and services that are vital to society – natural assets we call ‘ecosystem services,’” Schafer said. “The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets will enable America’s agriculture producers to better compete, trade their services around the world, and make significant contributions to help improve the environment.”
Agriculture producers provide many ecosystem services such as clean air and water, wildlife habitat, carbon storage and scenic landscapes, which have historically been viewed as free benefits to society. Without a formal marketing structure for these services, farmers, ranchers and forest landowners are not generally compensated.
Market-based approaches to conservation have proven to be a cost-effective method to achieve environmental goals and sustain working and natural landscapes, according to the USDA. Without financial incentives, these ecosystem services may be lost as privately-owned lands are sold or converted to development.
Schafer said Sally Collins, associate chief of the USDA Forest Service, will be director of the new office, which will have direct oversight from the Agriculture secretary. Collins has been credited with pioneering concepts for ecosystem services and markets as part of the Forest Service’s sustainable land management mission.
The first ecosystem services to be examined will be carbon sequestration. The office and the board will implement the actions authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill.
Serving on the board will be secretaries of Interior, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and Defense; the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors; the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology ; the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. The secretary of Agriculture will serve as chairman.
The chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the administrator of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs will serve as vice-chairs.
Nominations will be sought in the future for a federally chartered public advisory committee. It will include farmers, ranchers and forest landowners, tribal representatives and representatives from state natural resource and environmental agencies, agriculture departments, and conservation and environmental organizations.
By Cecilia Parsons
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Australia Carbon Farmers congratulate America for its leadership role in this issue. Biosequestration (via photosynthesis) is the only way the human race has to remove the Legacy Load of CO2e that is already up there and is capable of driving the Planet through the dangerous 2°C limit. The world is not going to stop burning coal until alternatives reach critical mass and none of them can do that for at least 25 years. The world’s 5.5billion hectares of agricultural lands have massive capacity and are fully deployed, needing only the incentive of carbon credits to see the land management techniques shift from carbon emitting to carbon capture and hold. You can’t plant enough forests in the time we have left (Stern’s decade is already 2 years old) and they tend to be emitters in their early years. The USA, through this bold move by your new President, can lead the world – including India and China who each have billions of hectares of carbon-depleted agricultural soils which, if they became carbon ’sinks’, might change the minds of their governments about signing on for Kyoto – to a new, timely solution to climate chaos before it gets any worse. Those of us in the soil carbon movement in Australia (which is in the grip of climate change and has been grappling with the issue of biosequestration for several years – see carboncoalitionoz.blogspot.com) urge you to avoid the Tower of Babel that is the science of soil carbon. Farmers in Australia have demonstrated that even our ancient and degraded soils can “grow” carbon at rates no conventional scientist can believe is possible – at between 1% and 2% per year and more – because conventional science has not had time to study the new “Carbon Farming” techniques that impact positively on ecosystems, biodiversity, and soil fertility and health. For this reason, no scientist can give a informed opinion of the ‘potential’ of your soils to sequester carbon. That is, until they have studied the advanced “Carbon Farming” techniques adopted here in Australia where we have been lashed by extremes of Climate Change for more than a decade. The techniques include various combinations of the following: new grazing management techniques, new combination cropping/grazing systems – called pasture cropping and perennial cover cropping, biological and biodynamic farming, and probiotic inoculation. Traditional science is hamstrung by its need to conduct 3 year trials and then take 2 years for the results to appear in a peer-reviewed journal before it will say it is so. When the world is given 10 years (2 years ago) to do something serious about Climate Change, we feel that waiting for half the time to satisfy science before starting to deploy the solution is not appropriate. Professor Rattan Lal and Dr John Kimble – both eminent American soil scientists – have pleaded with their colleagues to take a ‘real world’ approach to this challenge. Australian scientists are moving rapidly to provide data quickly.(The world’s only conference on Carbon Farming where scientists and farmers report on their experiences and experiments is in its second year in Australia – DVD of proceedings available via blogsite) We have also published The Carbon Farming Handbook and Issues Manual, the first publication of its kind. (Viaa Blogsite or 612 6374 0329) We are a non-profit/non-income voluntary operation funded by an overdraft on our farm which is maxing out, and whatever we can earn speaking, consulting, and selling our information. Good luck!
MIchael Kiely
Convenor
Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming
CARBON COALITION: wwww.carboncoalition.com.au
CARBON COALITION BLOG
CARBON FARMING CONFERENCE 2008 SLIDES:
DIARY OF A CARBON FARMER
INFORMED COMMENT:
“The Carbon Coalition should be awarded the Nobel Prize.” – Andre Leu, Chairman, Organic Federation of Australia
“The Carbon Coalition single-handedly barnstormed the issue onto the national agenda.” – Matt Cawood, The Land Newspaper
“I admire the Carbon Coalition’s tenacity in pursuing the opportunity for landholders to contribute to the Climate Change challenge… The UN is coming around to Michaels worldview….” – Dr Michael Walsh, Senor Vice President, Chicago Climate Exchange
“The Carbon Coalition has opened the lines of communication between the farmers, scientists, and traders, and cleared up many misunderstandings.” – Dr Brian Murphy, NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change
“The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming have demonstrated leadership and vision in the field of soil carbon sequestration. Their tireless work is widely recognized in the United States.” – Abe Collins, Co-Founder, Carbon Farmers of America
“The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming address the root cause of Australia’s degraded grasslands currently contributing to global climate change… I encourage the government of Australia to look towards a new paradigm in land management to chart a new future.” – Allan Savory, Founder, Holistic Management International