Over the past century, the number of Americans living on farms has fallen from nearly 40% to less than 2%. As large agribusiness and monoculture farms take over, smaller farmers have had difficulty finding ways to compete. Michael Pollan featured Polyface Farms in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his treatise on food. By making sure that the land was cared for, the owners and operators of Polyface ensured its long term viability. They engaged in management intensive grazing, where the animals are rotated through a plot of land to ensure that the right mix of consumers and decomposers scour the land and that the producers are given time to regenerate.

With the passage of the cap-and-trade bill by the House of Representatives at the end of June, more opportunities may arise for small farmers who practice no-till farming, a technique in which they do not turn over the soil, releasing carbon dioxide that has been fixed in the ground. This has the ultimate effect of fixing, or sequestering carbon in the roots of plants. In this story from Colorado Public Radio’s KCFR, farmers may earn money in the future via the Colorado Climate Action Plan. The program may resemble the Chicago Climate Exchange, with a local focus. Proponents of the program hope that Colorado farmers would earn more than $1 per acre (presumably per year), which according to KCFR’s report is the going rate for offsetting the emissions of one ton of carbon on the Chicago exchange. Companies would be able to purchase offsets from Colorado farmers, instead of national or international projects.

Quantifying the amount of carbon sequestered by the soil may provide the key to determining the precise mass of carbon contained in the soil and therefore the value of no-till farming for potential offsets. Colorado is working to develop its own agricultural carbon market, regardless of the final cap and trade bill working its way through Washington.

- Eric Wilson

[image source: Wisconsin.edu]