Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): cropland

Farmers need technical support to balance crop yields with climate benefits

By Doria Gordon / Bio / Published: May 19, 2025

Cornfields on Ohio farm.

Cropland, which covers roughly 13% of global land surface, is integral to producing food, slowing warming and boosting resilience. Farmers find themselves in a difficult spot: they are compelled to deliver higher yields to feed a growing human population but with a lower carbon footprint.

This complexity is underscored in a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, which assessed how tillage, cover crops and crop residue affected both crop yields and greenhouse gas mitigation over time. This work is the first to examine the yield and mitigation impacts of common regenerative agriculture practices independently and collectively at a global scale looking out to 2050 and 2100.

Importantly, farmers can use these conservation practices to produce yields and mitigation, but they will need additional technical and financial assistance to do so. This is critical to maintaining livelihoods, food stability and supporting the climate.

Posted in Agriculture / Also tagged Climate, crops, farmers, technical assistance, yields | Leave a comment

Why grasslands can bring in the green for growers

By Rebecca Haynes / Twitter profile / Published: January 13, 2016

Rebecca Haynes is a High Meadows Fellow with EDF’s Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Markets program.

Next week, hundreds of ranchers, landowners, land trusts, and environmental groups will gather in Stockton, California, for the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition’s annual summit. The event isn’t new, but the enthusiasm from attendees is unprecedented and palpable.

Why such a bustle in the grasses? Because of two recent landmark developments that reward ranchers for avoiding the conversion of grasslands to croplands:

In August, the Climate Action Reserve (one of the offset registries that oversees carbon credit development) approved a new voluntary grasslands protocol that offers payment for conservation activities.
In September, the Climate Action Reserve received a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) from the USDA to create a pilot grasslands project in coordination with EDF. This project will assist participating landowners in generating carbon credits. If adopted by the California Air Resources Board in the future, these credits could be sold in the California cap-and-trade market.

These two developments are part of a rapidly growing trend that offers landowners payments for conservation measures. Protecting grasslands means big wins for the planet and for ranchers, who have been committed partners in conservation and now have the opportunity to receive additional incentives to protect their landscapes. Here’s how it all works. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, Climate Resilience, Partnerships / Also tagged california, carbon credit, carbon market, carbon offset, climate change, conservation, farm, farming, grasslands, grasslands protocol, grazing, greenhouse gases, landowners, rangelands, water quality | Read 2 Responses

When landowners invest in sustainability, everyone wins

By Katie Anderson / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: November 12, 2015

Forty percent of the U.S. is taken up by farmland. Yet only half of these acres are actually owned by active farmers. In the Corn Belt, 70 percent of growers rent some portion of their land from a non-farming landlord. And the biggest growth in non-farming landowners is coming from investors that see farmland ownership as a good business opportunity.

Here’s the problem: non-farming landlords aren’t always informed on the best ways to care for the farm, which can present environmental and economic challenges for tenants and the owners themselves.

As more non-farmers buy up cropland, government agencies, organizations, and even the private sector will need to ramp up efforts to educate landowners on the importance of soil health, fertilizer efficiency, and other conservation measures in protecting their farm’s value and making the land more resilient to extreme weather events.

Non-farming landowners can be a powerful partner in reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint at scale and ensuring food productivity in the future. Plus, when landowners invest in sustainability and collaborate with those farming their lands, everyone wins – growers, landowners, consumers, and the planet. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture, Partnerships / Also tagged agriculture, conservation, farmers, farmland, food production, investment, iowa, landowners, nutrient efficiency, Oakland Institute, property value, soil health, sustainability, tenants | Read 1 Response