The mighty agriculture sector gets their way with Waxman-Markey, but at what cost?
Every several years the power of Big Agriculture is evident when the Farm Bill is renegotiated, promising untold billions to the agriculture sector in the form of subsidies, incentives, research grants, and other programs.
Big Ag wielded its mighty stick again in the weeks leading up to the passage of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. A number of representatives led by House Agriculture Committee chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn) withheld support of the bill until control of future agricultural offsets for the upcoming cap and trade markets was wrested away from the EPA (the preferred choice of environmentalists) and given to the more farmer-friendly USDA. Also heavily involved in the lobbying for more agriculture-specific provisions in Waxman-Markey were some of Big Ag’s most powerful players, including heavyweights like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and Dupont.
One of the key areas that the USDA has taken control of in Waxman-Markey is the design and delivery of agriculture-based offset projects. Authorities in both the US and Canada have long recognized the importance of the agriculture sector in meeting national greenhouse gas emission reductions. Understandably, farmers have been eagerly anticipating the additional revenues coming their way from offset projects in cap and trade markets.
There are a number of agricultural project types that are being touted for generating offset credits, including:
• reduced tillage / no-tillage
• afforestation of marginal farmlands
• nitrogen fertilizer management
• improved manure management
• livestock feed management (dairy, swine)
• anaerobic digesters
• biomass energy
• energy efficiency upgrades of facilities
A number of the potential agriculture offset project types are robust, defensible, and easily measured, particularly those involving energy generation (digesters, biomass energy) and energy conservation. But in a classic example of ‘not all offsets are created equal’, there is the potential for a huge quality gap between the robust credits and those that are harder to measure, monitor, and verify.
Conservation tillage practices (reduced till or no-till) are used by farmers to introduce a number of benefits to the soil, including improved fertility and reduced erosion. A number of studies have also shown that conservation tillage increases the sequestration of carbon in the soil. One study conducted at The Ohio State University estimated that U.S. farmers could store 288 million tons of carbon in their soil every year, which represents 17% of American GHG emissions.
The recent actions of Big Ag suggest that it will make every effort necessary to get conservation tillage approved as an allowable offset project – the number of farmers and acres that stand to benefit are simply too great to pass by. Yet a number of contradictory studies have been published in recent years that question the scientific validity of using tillage practices for offset credits.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh state that increased soil carbon storage introduced by conservation tillage could be counterbalanced by increases in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. They state that “the promotion of carbon credits for the no-till system before we have better quantification of its net greenhouse gas balance is naïve.” Meanwhile, a study by the USDA and University of Minnesota concludes that: “though there are other good reasons to use conservation tillage, evidence that it promotes C sequestration is not compelling.”
When you consider that tillage-based offset projects are difficult to accurately measure and routinely monitor (in addition to the contradictory science), it will be very interesting to see how much appeal these credits will have in the emerging cap-and-trade markets.
I am in the business of recommending offset credits to businesses that need to buy them either to meet future regulatory requirements or voluntary programs. In all likelihood I would never recommend a client invest in tillage-based offset credits – there are just too many questions surrounding them. And given the amount of potential acreage that could be signed up to no-till contracts if they are approved as an allowable offset for use in cap and trade, what impact will this risky carbon credit method have on the overall GHG inventory of the nation?
Image: jimmedia at flickr under a CC License
Stephen Boles is co-founder of Kuzuka, a marketplace website that brings a new level of convenience and confidence to carbon offset customers and provide consulting services to organizations that want to assess and reduce their carbon footprint.
