[Pil-pc-oceania] Organic farmers claim to store more carbon (farmonline)

[Deb Guildner]

Organic farmers claim to store more carbon
1/05/2008 5:03:00 PM
Queensland Conservation has aligned with Biological Farmers of Australia, to 
re-instate claims organic farm methods can contribute to lowering Australia's 
greenhouse emissions by locking up more carbon in soil.
They also say organic production will become more competitive as oil and 
fertiliser prices climb.

As part of its climate change campaign, Queensland Conservation has referred 
to an extensive thirty year scientific trial by the Rodale Institute in the 
USA which found that organic practices can remove around 7,845 kilograms of 
carbon from the air for each hectare farmed annually by sequestering it in 
the soil.

The study found that if all 175 million hectares of cropland in America were 
converted to organic practices, it would be the equivalent of taking 217 
million cars off the road - or, more than a third of the world's 
automobiles.

Queensland Conservation board member, Jerry Coleby-Williams, says the 
research (first published in 2003) has relevance in Australia.

"Applying similar carbon sequestration results to those found in the Rodale 
study, an Australian farm with an average cropping area of 710 hectares, 
could sequester 5,500 tonnes of carbon each year," Mr Coleby-Williams said.

"There is a total of approx. 50 M ha of periodically cultivated soils in 
Australia, representing the potential for at least 390 million tonnes of 
captured carbon per year."

He said in the face of rising oil prices organic production combines 
'eco-friendly' with 'cost-effective'.


SOURCE: QCC

COMMENTS:

Finally we are starting to hear the well known facts communicated to the 
broader community.

Posted by Andrew on 2/05/2008 7:43:31 AM

Farmers will eventually understand that if they keep applying nitrogen-based 
fertiliser on soil this practice will biologically unbalance the soil in 
favour of nitrogen munching microbes that require 6 carbons to every one 
nitrogen unit and this carbon is stripped from the soil.
Combine this effect with the acid effects of chemical fertilisers, intensive 
tillage, chemical sprays and burning of stubble and you end up with a dead 
soil, lost soil water, food production and plant nutrients.

Biological farming restores the balance of soil biology and builds soil 
carbon that is a key food of microbes.

Chemical farming also degrades and dehydrated soils and is a major cause of 
compaction, salinity and wetlands turning acid.

Posted by mangiri on 2/05/2008 9:18:33 AM