There\u2019s widespread consensus that climate smart agricultural practices like cover cropping, reduced and no-tillage and crop diversification can help farmers adapt to climate change and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet confidence in the impacts of these practices as a climate solution has been undermined by reliance on models to determine how much carbon has been accrued or retained in soils.<\/p>\n
Soil organic carbon accounting and crediting relies on models because of the belief that direct measurement is too costly and cannot provide a practical solution to any large-scale measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification (MMRV) program for tracking soil carbon outcomes.<\/p>\n
But that assumption may be wrong. Working with a team of researchers from the University of Illinois and Yale School of the Environment, Environmental Defense Fund found that a rigorous approach to soil carbon quantification that relies on taking soil samples before and after practice adoption across a large number of farm fields is economically feasible.<\/p>\n
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An affordable option for large-scale projects<\/strong><\/p>\n In a new study, \u201cMeasure-and-remeasure as an economically feasible approach to crediting soil organic carbon at scale\u201d published in Environmental Research Letters<\/em><\/a>, the team explored how prices for soil sampling and analysis, costs related to adoption of new practices and prices for carbon credits influence the economics of measure-and-remeasure projects.<\/p>\n Larger projects \u2014 on the order of 1000 farm fields \u2014 with only about 10% of the fields measured for changes in soil carbon, can yield a competitive return on investment in five years if soil carbon accrues at rates similar to those from experimental research plots.<\/p>\n This measure-remeasure approach can provide validation that efforts aiming to increase soil carbon are having their intended impact \u2014 a necessary and important step to build confidence in these practices as a climate solution.<\/p>\n