D. Carbon Measurement Tools
One of the most important needs for advancing carbon farming is to improve our ability to assess the impacts of changed practices on carbon, both above ground and in the ground. Fortunately, there already exist several welldeveloped and widely accepted protocols for measuring total and changes in above-ground biomass (trees, shrubs, and annual plants, as well as plant debris).
In contrast to below-ground stocks, above-ground biomass tends to be more easily quantified and verified through direct measurements—either non-destructively or in association with harvesting activities. In forests, the USDA Forest Service since 1930 has estimated total above-ground stocks in plots across the United States through its Forest Inventory and Analysis program, largely based on scaled estimates from direct measurements of standing trees.15 Similarly, on croplands, above-ground biomass can be estimated based on harvest yields,16 or through more novel approaches including remote sensing.17By contrast, measuring soil carbon is a time-intensive, expensive, and complicated exercise. There are also few established protocols for measuring the precise greenhouse gas benefits of climate-friendly practices at a scale
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suitable for markets, making it difficult to pay farmers in carbon markets for implementing such practices. These challenges have slowed the development of agricultural carbon markets. Scientists are working to develop new, more efficient methods for measuring soil carbon content,18 but the resources devoted to this problem are insufficient given the urgent need for a reliable and inexpensive way to test soil.
Some private companies, such as Indigo Agriculture and Nori, as well as private and NGO consortia such as the Ecosystem Service Market Consortium, are seeking to develop feasible and reliable protocols for determining the climate change impact of various practices.19 These all rely on some mixture of sampling and modeling as well as regional approaches, and may be undermined by concerns of a conflict of interest. However, they offer a sense of the measurement (and policy) challenges carbon markets face and thus help identify current research needs and practical concerns that any measurement protocol must address.
Nonprofit organizations and universities should prioritize funding to develop and distribute cost-effective monitoring, measurement, and verification tools, while the private for-profit, not-for-profit, and philanthropic sectors should work with the research community to standardize measuring techniques. In turn, extension services and technical assistance providers should educate farmers about new developments in these tools to accelerate their adoption and acceptance.
More on the topic D. Carbon Measurement Tools:
- Globalization: the obsession with measurement
- E. Carbon Markets
- C. Easements and Other Conservation Tools
- Legal Entities as Governance Tools
- There are a number of ways that the private and nonprofit sectors can boost carbon farming and help reduce net agricultural emissions.
- 4. The Opportunity for Carbon Farming
- Agricultural activities not only emit greenhouse gases but can change the amount of carbon stored in soils and biomass, thus effectively releasing or absorbing CO2.
- To implement sound policy and pursue effective legal strategies, decisionmakers and advocates must become familiar with the climate-friendly agricultural practices that constitute carbon farming.1
- Methane and nitrous oxide are the two main greenhouse gases emitted by agricultural sources. EPA has several direct regulatory tools available to reduce emissions of these greenhouse gases, including recognizing the harm or “endangerment” caused by these pollutants and promulgating regulatory programs to require or support their reduction.
- 1. Cropland
- E. Greenhouse Gas Pricing