KEY FINDINGS

wheatBio-agriculture regenerates land eroded by conventional chemical agriculture - about 10 million ha annually for the last 40 years (Pimentel, 1995). This is an important precondition for long term food security. In the short term Bio-agriculture can help reduce poverty by increasing yields for small holders in the developing countries and by paying farmers for the CO2-e they sequester.

field“Agriculture is recognized as a sector with such potential that farmers, ranchers, herders and other land users around the world can and should be part of the solution to climate change.” 146
 

Farmers Are The Solution

 

The following table from the climate change calculator shows farmer's net benefits for the world. Different figures may be obtained by looking at individual countries or by changing the input data.

 

                                                                                             2020          2050
farmer's budget

 

Economic benefits are based on:

  • Gradual conversion of farmland to bio-agriculture.(2.5% per year),
  • Sequestering 3 tonnes of CO2-e/hectare/year into the soil (world average 3.62 tonnes CO2-e/ha/y).
  • Saving on the cost of fertilizers.
  • Gaining restored land.
  • Farmers pay for costs of conversion and support, R&D, measurement costs, bio-agricultural input costs, public information costs, food manufacturers and traders infrastructure and job creation costs.

 

Short term benefits – 2010-2020 farmers Net Benefits from bio-agriculture (including costs of $232 billion) = $842 billion, $161/hectare/year.

 

Long term benefits – In 2050 farmers Net Benefits from bio-agriculture (including costs of $2,887 billion) = $20,226 billion, $228/hectare/year

 

 

For a 500 hectare farm this translates into an extra net $80,000/year income with additional benefits of land regeneration, reduced water needs and reduced pollution of soil air and water. This is after farmers have paid all costs as listed above.

 

The farmers can first experiment on a small part, say 10 acres, of their farm, see the improvements after a few years and then convert the whole farm to bio-agriculture. All the while they receive financial benefits through carbon credits, not to forget the satisfaction of providing healthy food and helping the world to overcome global climate change.