Carbon Farming: From the Oil Age to the Soil Age

1. Carbon Farming: From the Oil Age to the Soil Age

2. Grazing Tall

4. Carbon Farmers of AmericaA start-up ecosystem service aggregator/broker based on rapid topsoil formation by graziers • Topsoil can be created hundreds to thousands of times faster than is widely understood. • New topsoil is the only carbon sink on earth that can quickly sequester the excess greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. • Livestock are the primary tool that makes rapid topsoil formation possible. • Grassfarmers are the front line in building new topsoil and stabilizing our climate. They will need to be paid to do the job. • We need to make alliances with environmentalists to make this happen.

5. What if there was a single carbon sink on earth that could rapidly: • Restore pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases within decades? • Solve the global water crisis? • Reverse desertification? • Restore biodiversity? • Halt the sixth extinction event? • Maximize global food security? • Contribute significantly to healing the oceans? • Create the foundation of a solar civilization?

6. Soil organic matter sustains agriculture, which sustains civilization__________Soil organic matter generates and regulates every ecosystem service that sustains life on earth.

7. Topsoil loss in excess of topsoil formation has beenthe defining characteristic of agriculture. • Estimates of past losses of Carbon from terrestrial stocks: • 66-90 billion tons (Rattan Lal, Ohio State U.) • ~200 billion tons (Charles Rice, University of Kansas) • Topsoil loss is as old as farming, land management by fire, hunting of ungulate herds and their predators and livestock domestication. The oil age has accelerated this trend. Global warming began with topsoil loss many thousands of years ago.

8. Carbon-rich topsoil is the foundation of wealth creation on earth and the “Fort Knox” of solar economics. Carbon is the currency of life. The rapid formation of carbon-rich topsoil is the greatest priority and opportunity of our time.

9. Getting Real about Food Security • “To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be grown worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined .” 2008 Icelandic Soil and Climate Conference.

10. How does carbon get into the soil?

11. Stable SOM comes largely from Nightly Carbon Exudates From Plant Roots. • Chemically similar to nectar. • Feeds organisms in the rhizosphere. • Up-to half, and often more, of the products of photosynthesis are exuded into the rhizosphere. • Carbon-rich exudates from grass roots are the “cheapest, most efficient and most beneficial form of organic carbon for soil life.”

12. Carbon Exudates and Root Prune-off After Grazing Photo: Dr. Christine Jones Carbon exudates from plant roots feed soil organisms, which feed soil nutrients to plants.

13. Rate of Growth and Volume of Plant Roots Per Unit of Soil Dictate Soil Carbon Increase • Aim for big, dense root networks growing as rapidly as possible…. Photo: Dr. Christine Jones

15. Fungi Bacteria Algae Protozoa Nematodes Micro-arthropods Earthworms Insects Small vertebrates The Microbial Bridge to Humus. Images: Dr. Elaine Ingham, Soil Foodweb, Inc.

16. All of our hopes, plans and possibilities are ultimately determined by the state of four biosphere processes: Solar Energy Flow Biological Community Dynamics Water Cycle Mineral Cycle.

17. UN Millennium Ecosystem AssessmentEcosystem Services: Food: Crops Livestock Capture fisheries Aquaculture Wild foods Fiber Timber Wood Fuel Genetic resources Biochemicals and medicines New products and industry from biodiversity Fresh water Regulating Services: Air quality regulation Climate regulation – global Climate regulation – regional and local Water regulation Nutrient cycling Erosion regulation Water purification, waste treatment, detoxification Ecosystem regulation of disease in humans, livestock and wildlife Pest regulation Pollination Natural Hazard Management: Protection from flood and fire Cultural and Amenity Services Spiritual and religious values Aesthetic values Recreation and Tourism Ecosystem services are generated and regulated by topsoil, the product of the proper functioning of the four biosphere processes.

18. The state of the biosphere processes is determined by the state of the soil surface.Desertification, Biodiversity Loss, The Water Crisis, Climate Change, Disease Outbreaks, Food Insecurity, (etc.) are all one issue. Kachana Ranch, AU

19. Mega-herd Impact and The Importance of Litter

20. The Global Carbon Cycle

21. Current atmospheric CO2 Level: 385 Parts Per MillionTarget: < 300 p.p.m. • Amount of carbon to be relocated to soils: Around 200 billion metric tons. • Possible timeframe: 10-20 years. • Cost of creating the foundation for solar civilization: Priceless. • Just Kidding. The cost will be much lower than a single year (2005) of gross world product – $59.38 trillion. • If we estimate an agricultural multiplier effect of 7, which trickles UP through the economy, the cost of the job turns into hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of economic activity. • Using substitution analysis, let’s add the full value of the ecosystem services thus generated. Beyond Priceless. • The 21st century version of the Civilian Conservation Corps will be a global web of local topsoil formation by communities with intimate knowledge of the land rebuilding watersheds and bioregions. • Welcome to the transition to a solar civilization.

22. Building the Solar Economy: • Parity Pricing. Production plus profit. • Charles Wilkens. Progressive Farmers of Iowa. 1930’3 • The Stegnall Amendment, 1942. • This time around, humus production is paramount. • The way out of the current economic crisis is our opportunity to build a solar civilization.

23. Strategies to Reduce Atmospheric CO2 IPCC Emissions Reductions Warning Label!

24. IPCC: Emissions Reductions Are Not Enough. • In 2007 the IPCC reported that instantaneous and "complete elimination of CO2 emissions is estimated to lead to a slow decrease in atmospheric CO2 of about 40 ppm over the 21st century." In other words, elimination of fossil fuel emissions alone has no leverage in decreasing dangerously high concentrations of greenhouse gases on a relevant schedule. Technology is not enough. • “Carbon Neutral” and “Offset” initiatives are equivalent to complete emissions cessation and thus are not enough.

27. Keeling Curve Carbon Farming Graphic: Peter Donovan

28. Burning Biomass • Biomass Burning is responsible for 40% of annual emissions of C02. (NASA) • Grassland burning is responsible for almost three times the emissions of tropical forest burning. • Replace burning of grasslands with grazing and mega-herd impact and bank the carbon in the soil instead. • We must be conscious of current temperature reductions due to global dimming from biomass burning and fossil fuel combustion!

30. The True Scale of “The Job” • Reduce annual emissions from combustion to levels that are matched by biological sequestration. • Relocate about 200 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere to the soils of the world by increasing average soil organic matter levels about 2% to a foot of depth on 5.1 billion hectares of agricultural and grazing land. (I.e., from 2% to 4% organic matter, assuming a conservative soil bulk density of 1.2 g/cm3.)

31. In the last fifty years the global regenerative agriculture movement has discovered dozens of ways to build topsoil quickly in every environment. • We have the tools to do “The Job” today. There is no good reason left on earth not to begin the job in earnest. • Carbon Farmers of America has synthesized all of these tools into a dynamic curriculum and an analysis and implementation process: The Carbon Farming Toolbox. • Almost any land manager can gain sufficient understanding of these tools for practical implementation with a few weeks of training, plus support through ongoing, structured study groups.

32. The CFA Carbon Farming Toolbox: 34 strategies for increasing soil health and organic matter.

33. Allan Savory and Holistic Management • How does carbon cycle in seasonally dry environments?

34. Grass, Soil, Ungulates, Predators have all co-evolved.

35. The Big Idea: The primary tools on earth that can build new topsoil are great herds of livestock managed in a way that simulates the behavior of the great wild herds in the presence of predators. Mega-herds are the big guns of biomimicry. • We can restore any terrestrial environment, brittle or non-brittle. This will go far toward healing the oceans.

37. Multiply the hoof-print at left by trillions to get a sense of what it means to “reverse desertification.” Grazing is the single largest use of land on earth. Photo: Dan Dagget Babbit Ranch

40. Keyline Soilbuilding: P.A. Yeomans and Family

41. 1968 1953 1958 1971 1974 1994 2004 2005

42. Keyline Soil Development: Graze, subsoil, water, recover, repeat.

43. A healthy future is built on deep, high-carbon, covered topsoil.

44. Re-thinking carbon pricing • Carbon pricing needs to reflect the value of soil carbon. We cannot continue to undervalue carbon. Soil Carbon is worth many more times than carbon credits generated by emissions reductions or technological offsets. Nutrients and H2O contained in 1 kg of humus = $.20 Rational price = $200/ton of C (Rattan Lal) Add the value of the other ecosystem services generated to estimate the full value.

45. Where will the money come from? • Carbon Markets are projected to become the largest commodity market on earth. • US: Cap and Trade in Legislation in 2009. Regional Agreements (RGGI) will start up in 2009 • Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) has legs globally. PES development in cooperation with stakeholders is mandated in the current Farm Bill. • 2012 Farm Bill. Human self-interest suggests that increasing soil carbon should be the central concern.

46. Proposal: Environmentalists, graziers and farmers can form an historic alliance. • We carbon farmers will refine our skills and put rapid topsoil formation into effect. • Soil Carbon Monitoring is not an obstacle – it is a key. • Will you exercise your creativity and lobbying power to help us to make soil carbon the center of carbon markets, public lands policy and the 2012 farm bill?

47. Filling the Data Gap: Holistic Research CFA and Cornell Study. David Pimentel, lead scientist. Measuring Soil Carbon Increase and Ecosystem Service Provision Under Optimized Management of Grassland Farms and Ranches Purposes: To measure the rate and volume of increase of soil organic carbon to four feet of depth on twenty grassland farms and ranches over two years, quantify and characterize changes to soil physical, chemical and biological properties and quantify attendant ecosystem service provision.

48. Please Join Us • www.carbonfarmersofamerica.com • www.soilcarboncoalition.org