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Chapter 3

AGRICULTURE’S Carbon markets lure

SUSTAINABLE

FUTURE: farmers, but will

Feeding more benefits be enough
while using less
to hook them?

By Ed Maixner and Philip Brasher

ever mind that Trump-Pence sticker on Kent, who raises dairy and beef cattle, plus
the back of his Dodge Dakota pickup, 100,000 turkeys, currently earns $17,000 a year
NWes Kent and the way he manages his in conservation program payments for a range
small, diversified farm in Virginia’s Shenan- of practices he’s adopted since buying what was
doah Valley figure big in Joe Biden’s vision for a starter dairy farm 20 years ago. One of many
addressing climate change by paying farmers to early moves was hand-seeding fescue in what
reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. he had first found as a mud flat where lounging
cows had denuded the farmstead’s river bank.
Biden’s plan to create a way for farmers to earn
credits for climate-friendly practices is shared His current practices include manure treatments
by multinational corporations that are eager to to limit emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas;
offset their emissions, leading farm groups that conservation tillage methods that avoid turning
want to find new income streams for producers. over the soil and releasing carbon dioxide into
the air; and planting cover crops to build carbon
His plan, and the numerous private market
programs that are springing up, face numer- in the soil and prevent the runoff of nitrogen
ous questions: Can they pay enough to attract and phosphorus into the nearby Middle River,
a critical mass of farmers? Will some farmers part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
benefit more than others, based on where they His aggressive pursuit of conservation practices
farm or whether they can afford to adopt new aligns well with what the National Sustain-
practices and technology? And will farmers get able Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), in a recent
paid somehow for steps they’ve already taken to series of blogs, enumerated as the best cli-
slash greenhouse gas emissions? mate-change-fighting practices for U.S. farmers.
Count Kent as interested in the idea of carbon For Kent, the government payments from the
payments. “Anytime there’s a financial incentive, Conservation Stewardship Program have been
it gets you even more interested in doing what critical to making his farm sustainable finan-
you’re doing,” he said. cially, and covering the cost of his conservation

www.Agri-Pulse.com 29