Carbon Sequestration

[Lexion1000]

I have read pieces here and there about farmers being paid to sequester carbon in their soils. It seems from what I read that in the future offsetting carbon footprints could be almost as important as the job of growing food. I have little knowledge on the subject so hopefully someone out there could answer a few questions..
1. Is it possible to do this now? i.e. Does anyone have a contract with a company to offset their carbon.
2 Is this likely to be a feature of ELMS?
3. How will carbon sequestration be measured?
4. What is a ton of sequestered carbon worth?
Basically i don’t know much about it so I would very much appreciate it if anyone could explain how it might all work. Cheers

 

[Lazy Sod]

Permanant pasture extensively grazed by cattle and sheep sequesters carbon and produces food, already.
I refer you to the thread above: Farming is Part of the Solution.

Carbon offsetting is just another version of the emporors new clothes.

 

[Lexion1000]

Permanant pasture extensively grazed by cattle and sheep sequesters carbon and produces food, already.
I refer you to the thread above: Farming is Part of the Solution.

Carbon offsetting is just another version of the emporors new clothes.

I am aware of the above, I am interested in how one might go about getting paid to do it.

 

[Fergieman]

I beleive there is a Hill/Peat bog in Lanarkshire been bought by Easy Jet to offset Carbon.

 

[Hampton]

I beleive there is a Hill/Peat bog in Lanarkshire been bought by Easy Jet to offset Carbon.

I think what the OP is referring to is would it be possible to lease out carbon sequestration units to other industries to offset their emissions and how much would it be worth?
ie if one acre perm pasture sequesters 1.5t CO2, could the 1.5t be leased to an emitter?
It’s a fair point and has potential to be a good earner.

 

[colhonk]

If this leasing and offsetting becomes a reality, farmers need to stick together and not sell our usefulnes too cheaply.

 

[upnortheast]

1. Is it possible to do this now? i.e. Does anyone have a contract with a company to offset their carbon.

Sounds like a breeding ground for snake oil salesmen

 

[Chris F]

I have read pieces here and there about farmers being paid to sequester carbon in their soils. It seems from what I read that in the future offsetting carbon footprints could be almost as important as the job of growing food. I have little knowledge on the subject so hopefully someone out there could answer a few questions..
1. Is it possible to do this now? i.e. Does anyone have a contract with a company to offset their carbon.
2 Is this likely to be a feature of ELMS?
3. How will carbon sequestration be measured?
4. What is a ton of sequestered carbon worth?
Basically i don’t know much about it so I would very much appreciate it if anyone could explain how it might all work. Cheers

So the answer to number 4 is about £17 at the moment.

The answer to 3 - is the big problem at the moment!

The answer to 1 is the big companies that buy carbon don;t want to deal with individuals, they want to deal with organisations. So to do this effectively farmers are going to have to group together.

I personally doubt it will be part of ELMs. However the things that lead to carbon sequestration are very likely to be part of ELMs.

 

[oil barron]

If you run a bio digester that uses cow manure I think you can already sell that offset to American companies.

Carbon Credits

Carbon Credits are your tool for global emissions mitigation. Purchase high-integrity carbon credits that drive meaningful climate impact.

3degreesinc.com

 

[topground]

I can offer a carbon capture system for hire in an annual basis, reasonable rates, discount for quantity. Photo attached of the system in operation.

 

[Brisel]

1. Yes. We sold the carbon credits on some woodland planted in 2011. I don't know how much it is but it wasn't much & it came with a few Ts & Cs as you'd expect - things like measured growth & replanting any dead trees. The government have now messed up an industry led market developing by interfering in it.
2. Don't know yet. The tricky bit is...
3. ...Measuring it reliably!
4. Don't know. See @Chris F 's reply as that echoes most of my thoughts on the matter.

 

[livestock 1]

I am currently in the process of renewing a moorland Hls scheme and have two options
1 renew existing scheme on an annual basis
2 lock into a new scheme for 10 years with 5 year break
The new elms scheme is not available yet
Carbon is the new ????
A new scheme is more likely to include such as
It’s blanket bog on a reasonable sized area
Sorry this doesn’t answer anything

 

[Chris F]

I am currently in the process of renewing a moorland Hls scheme and have two options
1 renew existing scheme on an annual basis
2 lock into a new scheme for 10 years with 5 year break
The new elms scheme is not available yet
Carbon is the new ????
A new scheme is more likely to include such as
It’s blanket bog on a reasonable sized area
Sorry this doesn’t answer anything

So David Kennedy of Elms was asked a question about this at the Oxford Farming Conference. He said you would be able to ditch a scheme for ELMs with no penalty. So you won;t be locked in schemes.

Defra have said we could collect together some questions like this and David and the Defra/Elms team will give us answers. This could be the first question.

 

[Bob the beef]

I was at a meeting recently where we were told that a group,of farmers in north wales had traded their carbon credits off a a significant area of heathland. Sorry can't tell you where exactly or for how much. We were told by the speaker that in 10 years time this could form a significant part of our income on upland all grass livestock farms

 

[livestock 1]

This carbon trading makes no sense to me. If an airline burns fuel constantly and buggers up the environment why should we trade this to make them look good?
The value is in what we as farmers are already doing.
Therefore the benefits should be shown in our businesses surly?
Instead we are trying to make a dirty business look good?
And loosing the benefits it could represent to our existing businesses which are getting flack at the moment.

 

[Daddy Pig]

heard an advert on local radio eariier for Shell (I think) urging people to buy their carbon neutral petrol, not sure how that works.

 

[livestock 1]

Someone mentioned it to me in the pub that easyJet was planning to be carbon neutral. I couldn’t see how but this explains it.
To me it’s in name only and changes nothing on the ground

 

[Muddyroads]

This carbon trading makes no sense to me. If an airline burns fuel constantly and buggers up the environment why should we trade this to make them look good?
The value is in what we as farmers are already doing.
Therefore the benefits should be shown in our businesses surly?
Instead we are trying to make a dirty business look good?
And loosing the benefits it could represent to our existing businesses which are getting flack at the moment.

Completely agree with this, and have thought for sometime that we risk losing a powerful marketing tool if we somehow sell ourselves down the river to the real ghg culprits. I do however realise that this stance will only increase the pressure that will come on us by the major polluters.
I’ve had a go at measuring our carbon footprint as I’ve said on other threads, and while it’s easy to see roughly what we emit, I think we have a long way to go before we can accurately assess what we sequester. At the moment, it seems to be based on measuring the amount of carbon in the soil from year to year. The percentage up or down is then the measure of success/failure.
However, as was pointed out to me, soils will only increase by so much, to maybe 3-6% depending on type, so if you’re already high, there maybe little you can do, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
It then struck me recently that this assumes the amount of topsoil we have remains static. Can anyone remember who it was who realised that over his lifetime, the topsoil in his garden had increased?
We may actually be really successful in sequestering carbon, but see little if any increase in the soils percentage, because we are increasing the whole lot?
@Chris F, could this be a question to be asked?
How on earth you measure not only the amount of carbon in soil, but the total amount of soil in a field I don’t know, but if we don’t get this right, our contribution to carbon sequestration could be seriously underestimated. This for me is one of the big differences between the benefits of agriculture and the myths of forestry.

 

[livestock 1]

I had a conversation about cattle on my farm and carbon with someone who tackled me about damaging the environment. Their idea was to leave land fallow and soak up carbon. Also there was a calculation about how much carbon my cattle produced. I explained that if land was covered in rough dead grass then it would likely release carbon. I also explained that grazing cattle would cause regrowth which would take carbon in. Also like a car the carbon released from my cattle is only from what goes into them via the grass and this would be similarly released from dead grass from fallow land put to no use similarly like burning timber or letting it rot. All the while producing food.
They were quite shocked
I don’t know much about any of it

 

[Muddyroads]

I had a conversation about cattle on my farm and carbon with someone who tackled me about damaging the environment. Their idea was to leave land fallow and soak up carbon. Also there was a calculation about how much carbon my cattle produced. I explained that if land was covered in rough dead grass then it would likely release carbon. I also explained that grazing cattle would cause regrowth which would take carbon in. Also like a car the carbon released from my cattle is only from what goes into them via the grass and this would be similarly released from dead grass from fallow land put to no use similarly like burning timber or letting it rot. All the while producing food.
They were quite shocked
I don’t know much about any of it

Neither do I but I’m learning, and like you, because we take an interest in it and are practical individuals, we’ll have a better handle on it than many. If vegetation rots down, it emits methane (or at least the bacteria do). If ground is flooded for any length of time, the same thing happens, such as in paddy fields.