"Carbon farming" good for the climate, farmers, and biodiversity

Around the world, companies, especially those that depend on the production of plant-based products, are stepping up their sustainability efforts. In the face of climate change, producers of things like coffee and fragrances are realizing that biodiversity and conservation are crucial to the companies’ success and sustainability. Trusts like Germany’s Crop Trust are becoming key players in this, helping companies develop conservation strategies.

The government wants more farmers turning waste methane into biogas to help combat the negative effects of global climate change. California is leading the initiative, largely through a cap-and-trade program.

Landowners, state employees, environmental groups, and local hunters are working together to protect Hawaii’s forests and drinking water by eradicating invasive plants from the state’s protected forests. By allowing native plants to flourish, these forests could help combat climate change by sequestering carbon and allowing freshwater quivers to recharge with rainfall. Since 2013, the state has built 132 miles of fence to keep grazers away from forests to prevent the spread of seeds of invasive plants. However, this method can be expensive; a 1,400-acre fence cost over a million dollars.

An innovative approach to combat climate change involves growing forests and resorting natural vegetation on degraded or barren land. Known as the Miyawaki technique, planting seedlings of indigenous trees close together could speed the growth of the trees and not only offset carbon emissions, but also increase biodiversity. While the technique can be challenging to do correctly, corporations, nonprofits, and even schools have planted 285 of these forests around the world in India, the Netherlands, France, and Pakistan.

The degradation of peatlands is a public health and climate change issue. Organizations in Indonesia are working to understand these wetlands better by mapping the location of them throughout the country and around the world. By creating a comprehensive picture of peatlands, which contribute up to 10 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, key partners can understand how to prevent carbon emitting from the wetlands into the atmosphere.

By returning to indigenous varieties of crops, farmers can increase ecological diversity and reliance to climate change. In India, hundreds of farmers in the state of Odisha have been returning to indigenous crops, like millet, vegetables, and tubers. In contrast to the high yield varieties of seeds provided by the government, heritage crops prove more resilient to changes in climate, water shortages, and local pests. Using heritage crops also reduces the need for pesticides, helping to restore ecological balance in the region.

The state of Louisiana is disappearing at an incredible rate, and its sinking deltas threaten some of the nation's crucial oil, gas, and fisheries industries. Industry and government have created an unprecedented plan to save and rebuild these wetlands over the next 50 years — and say failure is not an option.

Population growth, historical dryness and predictions of a warming climate all mean a future of scarce water in the Rio Grande's Upper Basin. Farmers and the irrigation districts are left to try and find ways to conserve what river water they have - and there's a lot to be saved. To minimize such losses, both irrigation districts have taken a number of steps.

In Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council was formed after a severe drought to bring together federal, state and regional governments and bridge parochial concerns. It was meant to manage the basin as a whole and end overuse and salinization of farm land, leveraging new technologies to adapt to new realities.

A new county initiative in Colorado aims to support regenerative agriculture projects on farms as a way to take carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil in an effort to combat climate change. Restaurants donate 1 percent of their profits to the Restore Colorado initiative in Boulder County. The McCauley Family Farm is one of the first to sign on to this initiative and plan to plant more trees on their grazing land. While it can take years to see any benefits, organizers are looking to scale the initiative to be statewide.