PRESS RELEASE

Agriculture and Climate Change

An agenda for negotiations in Copenhagen.

Important findings in bio-agricultural research offer a solution to the impasse between developed and developing nations on climate change.

What is Bio-agriculture and how does it fight Climate Change?

• Bio-agriculture is an inclusive term for organic and biodynamic farming methods.
• Bio-agricultural farming methods have been shown to increase soil carbon, by taking CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil. This occurs at over 3 metric tonnes of CO2-e per hectare per year. (1 t of sequestered carbon = 3.7t of CO2-e)
• The world has 5,000 million hectares of agricultural land. If bio-agricultural practices were used on this farmland, the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 50%.
• Long term field trials have shown continual increases of soil carbon sequestration, each year, over a 40 year period. These results have been verified in more than thirty long-term comparative field trials between bio-agriculture and conventional farming methods.

-The Swiss DOK trial, running since 1978  found 15% higher soil organic carbon in soils of   organic systems corresponding to a sequestration rate of 2.6 t/ha/yr CO2-e (Fliessbach et al., 2007)
-The Rodale Institute has found rates of up to 11 t/ha/yr (Plimentel, et al., 2006; Hepperly,   et al., 2006)

• It was found that while bio-agricultural farming methods continuously increased soil carbon, conventional farming systems reduced it over the long term.
• The same research also shows that increased soil carbon has the effect of reversing land degradation. 2,000 million hectares, or 40% of the earth’s agricultural land, has been degraded through unsustainable cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, chemical pollution and aquifer degradation. Land degradation combined together with the rapidly growing world population is a crisis in waiting.
• New technology has now made measuring soil carbon, not only extremely accurate, but simple and cost effective, thus overcoming one of the major hurdles of  agriculture as a solution to climate change.The technology developed by Kansas University and Veris Technologies has been tested to a confidence interval level of 90%.
• Bio-agriculture is an extremely cost effective way of cutting emissions. It can remove the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere for less than 1% of the cost of existing emission reduction methods. (Based on world average emission reduction costs of 0.9% of GNP per capita)

The Solution 

• Our proposal is based on converting a small amount of agricultural land(2%) each year to bio-agriculture. If this gradual conversion is combined with at least 15% government emission reduction offers, the world could be carbon neutral by 2061.
• Professor Rattan Lal one of the worlds leading soil scholars has said; ; "Soil carbon sequestration is a win-win strategy. It mitigates climate change by offsetting anthropogenic emissions; improves the environment, especially the quality of natural waters; enhances soil quality; improves agronomic productivity; and advances food security. It is the low-hanging fruit and a bridge to the future, until carbon-neutral fuel sources and low-carbon economy take effect."  
• We have developed an interactive calculator that enables the user to see the great impact that bio-agriculture can have in the fight against climate change, land degradation and the related problems of water and food shortages. The calculator can be downloaded from the Bio-agriculture web site.                                         
• The calculator has another important use as a tool for negotiators involved in creating a world agreement on climate change. It enables them to quickly see the mitigation and financial effects of their proposals; on individual countries as well as on the world as a whole. This supports the process of coming to an agreement that sufficiently reduces emissions and is economically equitable for all members of the global community.
• Bio-agriculture also fulfils the main aim of farming - to produce healthy food.

For more information  see the website - http://bio-agriculture.org
Interviews – Erwin Berney:   contact via contact page on this website