Biochar Is ‘Low-Hanging Fruit' for Sequestering Carbon and Combating Climate Change

The Food and Agriculture Organization and the Slow Food Coffee Coalition are helping coffee farmers in Malawi adopt agroforestry practices by teaching them new techniques, helping them improve coffee quality, and showing them how to attract international markets. This way, the farmers earn more for their products and benefit the environment with their work.

Colleges across the United States are adopting the “campus as a living lab” approach to integrate climate change mitigation and environmental education into curriculums and combine them with efforts to make campuses more sustainable. Students across departments work on projects relevant to their degrees and the environment, many of which are implemented by the schools.

Farmers around the world are implementing agroecology practices to make their farms more resilient to climate change while promoting climate justice to strengthen farming communities. Agroecology follows 13 principles that include ecological practices, like using organic fertilizers, and political and social values, like embracing land rights.

Project Puffin started 50 years ago as a way to replenish and sustain the Atlantic Puffin population. The techniques pioneered years ago are now being used around the world as the standard practice for aiding seabird populations. With the help of Project Puffin, the area seabird population is now thriving after almost being completely wiped out across the state.

Plant Your Future is working with Peruvian farmers to reforest the Amazon rainforest by helping them earn an income while growing trees instead of doing so by cutting trees down. The charity does outreach, teaches farmers about agroforestry, intercropping, and the carbon market, and then supports them throughout the transition to those practices.

Farmers in the Rio Grande Valley are participating in a study to find out if cover cropping is a viable method to improve yields or reduce costs in a region harried by unpredictable weather and water scarcity. In some cases, the cover crops they’ve planted between growing seasons improved soil health and prevented wind erosion.

Biodynamic farming is slowly spreading across the United States as a practice that improves the health of a farm’s ecosystem by creating a sustainable system that uses its waste to generate its energy. This way of farming also involves practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, and eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Agricultural microbial technology can be used to create different soil applications like fertilizers and fungicides. These products can improve soil health and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by the industry.

A farming practice that involves installing solar panels over crops, called agrivoltaics, allows farmers in drought-stricken regions to keep crops from sun overexposure, keep water in the soil for longer, and cool the panels with the moisture released from the plants all at once.

Planting hedgerows as boundaries between, or around, crops can help farmers manage pests, boost pollination, and improve carbon sequestration in the soil around them.