Page 40 - C:\Users\sandi\OneDrive\Documents\Flip PDF Professional\Ebook-AgriculturesSustainableFuture-Final\

Chapter 4

AGRICULTURE’S Farmers look to

SUSTAINABLE

FUTURE: innovate their way to a

Feeding more smaller environmental

while using less
footprint

By Steve Davies

ith farmers under pressure to cut their consumers and with less need for land.
environmental footprint, global agri-
Wbusiness giants as well as small tech Some of the technology solutions, such as
startups are rushing to come up with ways to the methane digesters that capture the bio-
slash farm pollutants and make it possible for gas from livestock manure, already are being
producers to cash in on carbon credits and other widely deployed. But digesters and nearly all
new forms of income. of the tech fixes face barriers of some kind,
economic or regulatory. And the jury is still
These potential technological solutions include out on how much impact some of the tools
seed and soil treatments that can reduce the can have on greenhouse gas emissions and
need for synthetic fertilizer or capture carbon whether they can be both effective and make
from the air and store it in the soil. Feed addi- economic sense.
tives can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions
from belching cattle. Most of the tech fixes are aimed at address-
ing in some way U.S. agriculture’s two major
New forms of farming equipment could make it sources of greenhouse gas emissions: Nitrous
easier for growers to more precisely apply nitro- oxide, a gas formed when nitrogen is applied
gen fertilizer and other inputs — in other words, to crops, and methane, which comes from
make precision agriculture more precise. livestock and rice cultivation. Together the
two gases account for more than 98% of ag’s
Vertical farming makes it possible to grow veg- carbon footprint, according to the Environ-
etables and puts leafy green growers closer to mental Protection Agency.

40 www.Agri-Pulse.com