If Ranching Wants To Survive Drought And Other Climate Hassles, It's Time To Show Soil Some Love

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.

Pastures are able to replenish when livestock can move around. By permitting cattle to travel between pastures for feeding, Will Harris’ ranching technique allows the soil to retain more carbon. The carbon captured by the healthier soil also helps to offset the emissions caused by livestock production.

As the agriculture industry faces crop and profit loss due to catastrophic weather events, many farmers and ranchers are being catalysts for conversations with politicians, scientists, and environmental groups about how to combat the effects of climate change. Throughout the United States, key stakeholders in the food supply chain have formed working groups to discuss climate change and how their industry can work together to improve soil health and sequester carbon. While there are some who are not supportive of these efforts, there is a growing consensus around the importance of having these discussions.

One tactic for combatting climate change has to do with soil health. Soil can withdraw and store carbon from the atmosphere—at a higher rate when covered by manure—and also supports long-term soil sustainability and saves farmers money. Because agriculture already consumes much of the world's surface, proponents of carbon farming envision a world where large swathes of land act as a carbon sink. Potential drawbacks and things left to explore include how to produce compost without creating more energy than it saves and how to use cows effectively when they also contribute much of the carbon in the atmosphere.

Grasslands are important players in carbon sequestration. In the U.S. and Kenya some farmers are switching to regenerative grazing. For some this entails concentrating herds of cows and resting paddocks for long periods of time, and for others it means reseeding native grasses. This all forms part of a larger global network to restore grasslands.

Faced with the effects of climate change, in Montana, some farmers are turning towards organic or regenerative practices, a form of farming that includes thing like crop rotation, and using fewer pesticides. It’s a switch from conventional farming, which usually involves mono crops, heavy use of pesticides, and genetically modifies seeds, producing thehighestt yield. A technique that has led to soil erosion. Nationally, farmers are turning towards regenerative farming which builds the topsoil, meaning it is better for the land and the environment.

Symbrosia, a clean-tech startup in Hawaii, is taking seaweed from the ocean and turning it into a powder that can be used to feed livestock to reduce the amount of methane they produce — a key contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The company worked with an organic farm in Upstate New York to test the product and found that sheep given a high dosage of the supplement had up to 70 percent reduction in methane emission. Creating the powder takes weeks and a lot of steps, but the startup is hopeful the product can become a mass-produced commodity.

A farmer on Prince Edward Island fed his cows seaweed and noticed that they produced more milk and had better pregnancy success. A study of his cows found that they also reduced methane emissions by about 18 percent, a decent amount that could be beneficial in combating climate change. The farmer is now part owner of North Atlantic Organics, which produces seaweed supplements for livestock. Now, other companies around the world are popping up to do the same thing and scale this climate solution.

A San Diego startup called Vence has created a device that can help farmers control their livestock’s movements and behavior. The new technology – a collar with accompanying software – buzzes when an animal is somewhere it shouldn’t be and shocks them if they keep going. While the practice of shocking animals isn’t universally approved, doing so can prevent overgrazing and thus improve overall land health.

In Canada, farmers are rewilding their farmlands, a process where a farmer restores their habitat to a more natural state. It includes things like planting trees, building hedgerows, and creating ponds. Rewilding can prevent soil erosion, carbon sequestering, and filtering water, among many other things, reversing some of the adverse effects caused by farming. One non-profit, the Alternative Land Use Services is funding these rewilding projects by paying farmers. ALUS projects span 31,000 across Canada.