Atmospheric gases are some of the major causes of climate change and agriculture is a major player in greenhouse gases. This is why we have been looking at various ways to address this environmental issue. We have found that many of the recommendations involve conservation and management practices already encouraged by NRCS and that are already in use by many NRCS customers. Panelists introduced several avenues that will help contain gases at their origin, preventing them from reaching the atmosphere as well as ways of trapping gases once they have reached the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration, the management of nitrous oxide and methane were three of the major recommendations submitted by the panelists.
Carbon sequestration is simply the capturing of carbon.
Ag. is a relatively small contributor to the carbon in our atmosphere, it can, however, be a major player in the reduction of the total carbon loaded because various ag, practices such as conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, and replanting and revegetation, do such a good job of sequestering and trapping the gas. The management of nitrous oxide and methane got a lot of attention because agriculture emits heavy loads within the U.S. atmosphere. A historic gathering of governments at a special conference in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan by the parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to a historic protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by harnessing the forces to the global marketplace. One of the challenges facing the ag. We must be able to convince investors that we can effectively measure carbon at the source.