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Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture and Forestry |  |
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| Key Agricultural Practices |
Typical definition and some examples |
Effect on greenhouse gases |
| Conservation or riparian buffers |
Grasses or trees planted along streams
and croplands to prevent soil erosion and nutrient runoff into waterways. |
Increases carbon storage through sequestration. |
| Conservation tillage on croplands |
Typically defined as any tillage
and planting system in which 30% or more of the crop residue remains
on the soil after planting. This disturbs the soil less, and therefore
allows soil carbon to accumulate. There are different kinds of conservation
tillage systems, including no till, ridge till, minimum till and
mulch till. |
Increases carbon storage through enhanced soil sequestration, may reduce energy-related CO2 emissions from farm equipment, and could affect N2O positively or negatively. |
| Grazing land management |
Modification to grazing practices
that produce beef and dairy products that lead to net greenhouse
gas reductions (e.g., rotational grazing). |
Increases carbon storage through enhanced soil sequestration and may affect emissions of CH4 and N2O. |
| Biofuel substitution |
Displacement of fossil fuels with
biomass (e.g., agricultural and forestry wastes, or crops and trees
grown for biomass purposes) in energy production, or in the production
of energy-intensive products like steel. |
Substitutes carbon for fossil fuel and energy-intensive products. Burning and growing of biomass can also affect soil N2O emissions. |
Representative sequestration rates and saturation
periods of key agricultural practices
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Agricultural Practices that Sequester Carbon and/or Reduce Emissions of
Other Greenhouse Gases