Cosmos Briefing: How soil carbon farming works

[@gaberali1396]

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[@l-joldfield4709]

Yes it's a very good idea for farms to sequester carbon in their soil but do we have to lie about Aus carbon credit units not being a scam in the process?? (re avoided deforestation, CCS, and selling back to fossil fuel companies causing further emissions release) and that we would be far better served with a carbon tax.

[@jimbailey3705]

We still need some (government?) incentive for farmers all around the world to sequester carbon in the soil though, both to mitigate climate change by locking more CO2 back into the soil, but also to keep our soils healthy and productive. Soils have been so degraded in places that you are putting a huge amount more artificial fertiliser on than in the past: the ratio of N-fertiliser to crop yield is getting worse and worse. And that artificial fertiliser also contributes significantly to climate change.

[@Aermydach]

@@jimbailey3705 The problem is that the current Carbon Sequestration framework put in place by the Liberal Government *heavily* favours their Coal and Gas Mates. Please see: The Juice Media - Honest Government Ad | Carbon Credits (4mins) & Offsets & We need to talk about these dodgy offsets | with Polly Hemming (40min podcast).

[@flemlion13]

Sounds like it would be to easy for this to become a bookkeeping scam. After a couple of years getting more carbon in the same soil will get harder, so how will you then track the release that happens naturally over the following years? Farmers can rotate fields and on balance for the planet there is no effect, but selective testing would fake a carbon sequestration increase.

[@Iquey]

I don't know if it will make sense to keep adding it to the same land. But I'm sure the demand will be high in places where there are depleted soils. Quantifying the carbon into the process will take a lot of research and testing though to get accurate estimates of what IS sequestered though. This is why I like the idea of just mass growing algae on hot sea coats, and then turning it into fertilizer / compost after reducing the salt content.