Many of you will recall the 1992 CAST report entitled Preparing U.S. Agriculture for Climate Change that was prepared for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. CAST subsequently produced an issue paper summarizing the workshop discussion of the St. Michaels' meeting, and it is attached to my submitted written testimony. The St. Michaels' workshop was attended by nearly 100 invited persons, mostly from the United States and Canada, representing the White House, regulators, congressional staff, plant and equipment industries, federal agencies and laboratories, consumer groups, growers and grower associations, university scientists, national and international organizations. Findings of the St. Michaels' workshop that were reported in the CAST issue paper include the acknowledgment that organic matter contributes greatly to plant productivity and ecosystem stability. Soil organic matter plays a central role in the global carbon cycle.
Soils can act as a sink or as a source of carbon.
Land management is a critical component of whether the net change in the soil C is a gain or a loss. Agricultural practices that conserve soil and increase productivity while improving soil quality also increase the C content in soils, thereby removing CO2 from the atmosphere. There is excellent potential for C sequestration in all managed soils, and in some cases, the sequestration may be able to restore more than two-thirds of the C lost from conversion to agriculture and perhaps exceed original C contents in some soils and regions. This restoration of C needs to involve a search for ways to cause greater, more rapid, and longer-lasting sequestration. Promising lines of research are evolving that could lead to an improved understanding of soil C dynamics and the subsequent development of superior C sequestration methods.