How to Make Your Farm Carbon Neutral & Teach About It
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Based on the example of Appleton Farms, America’s oldest working farm and a commercial- scale vegetable and dairy operation, we will present the farm’s detailed carbon-counting model, review the specific measures used to eliminate it’s carbon footprint and then facilitate an interactive discussion on ways to engage the public in sustainability.
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How to Make Your Farm Carbon Neutral & Teach About It
- 1. How to Make Your Farm Carbon Neutral & Teach about it Wayne Castonguay- Director of Center for Agriculture and Environment Meghan Connolly-Education Coordinator, Weir River Farm
- 3. Meg’s Trustees introduction here
- 13. Climate Change Its all about the carbon cycle
- 14. What are the gases of concern? How much does TTOR contribute? How can we reduce our carbon footprint? What is the opportunity for TTOR with respect to carbon trading and carbon sequestration to help offset our footprint? Four Key Questions
- 15. Different greenhouse gases have different Global Warming Potential (GWP): CO2e is the common unit Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ): fossil fuel combustion Methane (CH 4 ): manure, decomposition Nitrous Oxide (N 2 O): nitrogen fertilizer 1 unit of CO 2 = 1 CO 2 e quivalents 1 unit of CH 4 = 23 CO 2 e quivalents 1 unit of N 2 O = 298 CO 2 e quivalents Gases of Concern
- 16. Berkshires 12% Pioneer Valley 4% Central 8% Northeast 44% Greater Boston 26% Southeast 5% Carbon Footprint 1,640 MT CO2 The 1,640 metric ton carbon footprint is based on the total energy use calculated for all utilities including, propane, fuel oil, natural gas, electricity, and the use of gasoline for our fleet of trucks and mileage reimbursement.
- 23. Property Management Property Management
- 25. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
- 26. Engagement
- 27. Goal: Eliminate Carbon Footprint
- 37. Pattern of C Sequestration in Soil New Maximum C Level Soil Organic Carbon Conventional tillage Change to No-tillage 0 50 Time (yr)
- 41. Appleton Farms Carbon-counting Model
- 50. OUR PLACE IN YOUR GREENER FUTURE Powisset Farm, Dover
- 54. Weir River Farm, Hingham
- 57. Mobilizing More People to Act
Editor's Notes
- This is an ongoing work in progress What we’ll walk thru today and want you to take away Outline
- Forest resources can mitigate GHG emissions by storage or sequestration in living forests and wood products. However, we should also consider whether greater GHG benefits can be realized by using wood to displace fossil fuel intensive products such as those listed.
- Substitution of wood for fossil fuels is an alternative to simply storing C in wood. The substitution can be direct, e.g. burning wood for heat or co-firing with coal for electricity generation. Or, it can be indirect by substituting wood for materials such as concrete, aluminum and steel that GHG intensive, requiring lots of fossil fuel to manufacture. Much of this would be in the construction industry.
- If wood is used as a fuel the combustion process needs to be efficient. Low efficiencies of wood stoves has caused many to associate wood burning with atmospheric pollution. This does not have to be the case. Modern gasification combustion processes can be highly efficient for providing heat or combined heat and power. A range of wood products such as logs, chips and pellets can all be used. These two home heating systems use supplementary air to assist gasification/combustion.
- Soils have a manageable range of organic carbon. The minimum represents intensely tilled soils where all macroaggregates (>0.25 mm) have been destroyed but microaggregates (<0.25 mm) persist. The maximum SOC level is where soil is not disturbed, i.e. no-till, or NT. Soil texture is a very important to the formation of aggregates which protect SOM from decomposition by a mixture of physical and chemical mechanisms. Coarse textured (sandy) soils have little potential to form aggregates as their particle size is too large. In contrast fine textures soils (clays), where surface areas are high and surfaces are reactive, have a high potential to form aggregates and hence protect SOM. Consequently SOM, or SOC, levels vary as a function of texture. Changes in residue inputs will have small impacts on soil OC levels but will alter the rate of gain after adoption of NT. Most soils on farms are somewhere between the potential minimum and maximum values, e.g. field M of the Jones farm. The C sequestration potential is the difference between the current soil C level and the and maximum under NT for the particular soil texture.
- C sequestration will not follow a linear pattern; its starts slowly, reaches a maximum rate then declines as the new (higher) SOC equilibrium level is approached. It is not clear why the initial rate of gain is low, but it may be related to the time it takes to re-establish faunal populations that assist aggregate formation. Re-emphasize that this is reversible with tillage and that rate of C loss is faster than rate of C gain under NT.
- Learning by Doing: Stewardship is best understood through hands-on learning and individual ownership. We are uniquely positioned to engage people in authentic and relevant work. By providing skill building experiences, we deepen connections to our work and empower them to carry those skills back to their own lives and communities.