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Category: Agriculture
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Agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions  like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide through various activities, including livestock digestion (methane), fertilizer application (nitrous oxide), and land use changes (carbon dioxide), impacting climate change. Here's a more detailed breakdown:
1. Livestock and Manure Management:
  • Methane (CH4):
    Livestock, particularly ruminants like cows, release methane during their digestive process (enteric fermentation) and through manure management. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping significantly more heat than carbon dioxide over a shorter period. 
  • Nitrous Oxide (N2O):
    Manure management practices, including storage and application to fields, can also lead to nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is another potent greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential 300 times greater than carbon dioxide. 
2. Agricultural Soils and Land Use:
  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2): Agricultural activities, including tilling the soil, burning crop residues, and converting natural ecosystems like forests to farmland, release stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 
     Carbon Sequestration: Healthy soils can store significant amounts of carbon, but agricultural practices can disrupt this process, leading to carbon release. 
     Rice Cultivation: Anaerobic conditions in rice paddies can lead to methane emissions. 
     
3. Fertilizers and Pesticides:
  • Nitrous Oxide (N2O):
    The use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers can lead to nitrous oxide emissions, both during the manufacturing process and after application to the soil.
  • Fossil Fuel Use:
    The production and application of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the operation of farm machinery, rely on fossil fuels, contributing to carbon dioxide emissions. 
4. Other Agricultural Emissions:
  • Burning of Crop Residues:
    Burning crop residues to clear fields can release significant amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and other pollutants into the atmosphere. 
     Fossil Fuel Combustion:
    The use of fossil fuels for heating, powering farm machinery, and transporting agricultural products contributes to carbon dioxide emissions. 
     Deforestation:
    Clearing forests for agricultural land use releases large amounts of stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    Food Waste:
    Food rotting in landfills produces methane, a significant greenhouse gas.
  • An Explanation of Units......A million metric tons of CO2: What does that mean?

  • A million metric tons equals about 2.2 billion pounds, or 1 trillion grams. For comparison, a small car is likely to weigh a little more than 1 metric ton. Thus, a million metric tons are roughly the same mass as 1 million small cars. The U.S. GHG Inventory uses metric units for consistency and comparability with other countries. For reference, a metric ton is slightly more (approximately 10%) than a U.S. "short" ton.   https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

  • Convert emissions or energy data into concrete terms you can understand — such as the annual CO2 emissions of cars, households, and power plants.......

The Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator allows you to convert emissions or energy data to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from using that amount. The calculator helps you translate abstract measurements into concrete terms you can understand, such as the annual emissions from cars, households, or power plants. This calculator may be useful in communicating your greenhouse gas reduction strategy, reduction targets, or other initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.   https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

Details
Category: Agriculture
Hits: 20
Agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions  like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide through various activities, including livestock digestion (methane), fertilizer application (nitrous oxide), and land use changes (carbon dioxide), impacting climate change. Here's a more detailed breakdown:
1. Livestock and Manure Management:
  • Methane (CH4): Livestock, particularly ruminants like cows, release methane during their digestive process (enteric fermentation) and through manure management. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping significantly more heat than carbon dioxide over a shorter period.
    Nitrous Oxide (N2O): Manure management practices, including storage and application to fields, can also lead to nitrous oxide emissions. Nitrous oxide is another potent greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential 300 times greater than carbon dioxide.
2. Agricultural Soils and Land Use:
  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2): Agricultural activities, including tilling the soil, burning crop residues, and converting natural ecosystems like forests to farmland, release stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    Soil Carbon Sequestration: Healthy soils can store significant amounts of carbon, but agricultural practices can disrupt this process, leading to carbon release.
    Rice Cultivation: Anaerobic conditions in rice paddies can lead to methane emissions.
 3. Fertilizers and Pesticides:
  • Nitrous Oxide (N2O):
    The use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers can lead to nitrous oxide emissions, both during the manufacturing process and after application to the soil.
  • Fossil Fuel Use: The production and application of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the operation of farm machinery, rely on fossil fuels, contributing to carbon dioxide emissions.
 4. Other Agricultural Emissions:
  • Burning of Crop Residues: Burning crop residues to clear fields can release significant amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
    Fossil Fuel Combustion: The use of fossil fuels for heating, powering farm machinery, and transporting agricultural products contributes to carbon dioxide emissions.
    Deforestation: Clearing forests for agricultural land use releases large amounts of stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
    Food Waste: Food rotting in landfills produces methane, a significant greenhouse gas. 
  • An Explanation of Units......A million metric tons of CO2: What does that mean? A million metric tons equals about 2.2 billion pounds, or 1 trillion grams. For comparison, a small car is likely to weigh a little more than 1 metric ton. Thus, a million metric tons are roughly the same mass as 1 million small cars.

    The U.S. GHG Inventory uses metric units for consistency and comparability with other countries. For reference, a metric ton is slightly more (approximately 10%) than a U.S. "short" ton.   https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

    Convert emissions or energy data into concrete terms you can understand — such as the annual CO2 emissions of cars, househ olds, and power plants.......The Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator allows you to convert emissions or energy data to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from using that amount. The calculator helps you translate abstract measurements into concrete terms you can understand, such as the annual emissions from cars, households, or power plants. This calculator may be useful in communicating your greenhouse gas reduction strategy, reduction targets, or other initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.   https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

AGRICULTURE-  UNITED STATES- EPA- Sources of Agriculture Sector Emissions

Agricultural activities — crop and livestock production — contribute to emissions in a variety of ways:
  • Various management practices on agricultural soils can lead to increased availability of nitrogen in the soil and result in emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O). Specific activities that contribute to N2O emissions from agricultural lands include the application of synthetic and organic fertilizers, the growth of nitrogen-fixing crops, the drainage of organic soils, and irrigation practices. Management of agricultural soils accounts for just over half of the greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture sector. Management of croplands and grasslands can also lead to emissions or sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2). These emissions and removals are included under the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry sector.
  • Livestock, especially ruminants such as cattle, produce methane (CH4) as part of their normal digestive processes. This process is called enteric fermentation, and it represents over a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture sector.
  • The way in which manure from livestock is managed also contributes to CH4 and N2O emissions. Different manure treatment and storage methods affect how much of these greenhouse gases are produced. Manure management accounts for about 14% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture sector in the United States.
  • Smaller sources of agricultural emissions include CO2 from liming and urea application, CH4 from rice cultivation, and burning crop residues, which produces CH4 and N2O.

More information about emissions from agriculture can be found in the agriculture chapter in the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks.

Agriculture Sector Emissions Trends- In 2022, direct greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector accounted for 9.4% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have increased by 8% since 1990. Agricultural soil management activities, such as application of synthetic and organic fertilizers, deposition of livestock manure, and growing nitrogen fixing plants, were the largest contributors to U.S. N2O emissions in 2022, accounting for 75% of total N2O emissions. Emissions from other agricultural sources have generally remained flat or changed by a relatively small amount since 1990.
An Explanation of Units- A million metric tons of CO2: What does that mean? A million metric tons equals about 2.2 billion pounds, or 1 trillion grams. For comparison, a small car is likely to weigh a little more than 1 metric ton. Thus, a million metric tons are roughly the same mass as 1 million small cars. The U.S. GHG Inventory uses metric units for consistency and comparability with other countries. For reference, a metric ton is slightly more (approximately 10%) than a U.S. "short" ton. Check out many other links......https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/agriculture-sector-emissions#sources

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Category: Agriculture
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Five Challenges the Agricultural Sector Faces and What We Can Do About It. Earth.Org Denisa Ogoyi Jun 19th 2024 Agriculture represents a crucial sector that underpins our population growth and well-being. It has been providing nourishment for generations. According to the United Nations, agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to combat extreme poverty, boost prosperity, and feed the global population. However, our current methods of food production, including monocropping and intensive tilling, have degraded over one-third of the world’s productive topsoil while failing to provide the agricultural yields necessary to sustain the growing global population. We take a look at the major challenges the agricultural sector faces and what alternatives to traditional agriculture should be prioritised.
 
What Are the Biggest Challenges the Agricultural Sector Faces.......
1. Climate Change......Changing weather patterns, weather extremes, and climate change-triggered droughts are among the key drivers of food insecurity. All these events have a huge impact on food production, as they significantly limit the quality, availability, and accessibility of resources, and compromise the stability of food systems around the world. Agriculture is highly dependent on climate and weather conditions. Prolonged drought or extensive rainfall can have devastating repercussions on soil health and fertility. Average global crop yields for maize or corn are projected to drop by 24% in the next 60 years. Maize is a crucial food staple in most countries and it is grown all over the world, but the largest quantities are produced in nations near the equator, including North and Central America, West Africa, Central Asia, Brazil, and China. While agriculture is heavily compromised by the climate crisis, the sector is also one of the main contributors to global warming. In fact, agriculture contributes almost one-third to global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the reason for which scaling up alternative, more sustainable practices must become a priority
 
2. Insufficient Agricultural Land......Of the 1.38 billion hectares of arable land available worldwide, more than one-third has been irreversibly compromised since 1961 owing to extensive land conversion and traditional agricultural methods such as monocropping and intensive tilling and land conversion that lead to soil erosion, desertification, and salinisation. In 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported a decline of 54 million hectares of arable land across developed countries in North America, Europe, and South Asia. Meanwhile, some countries in East and North Africa as well as South Asia have already reached their limit of farmable land. Only 12% of the global land surface is used for crop production and it is unlikely this number will increase mostly due to urbanisation. That’s why the pressure remains to preserve the existing arable land, despite most of it already starting to degrade..                                                                                               
 
3. Growing Population.....In 2022, the world population hit 8 billion and if growth continues at the same rate, it will double in next 50 years if the growth continues at the same rate.  The reasons behind such unprecedented growth are obvious: high fertility levels and drastic increases in human lifespans – thanks for the most part to remarkable advancements in public health and medicine as well as nutrition and personal hygiene – have accelerated population growth significantly over the last century. An obvious consequence of population growth is a higher demand for food, but if agriculture cannot keep up, then more people will become hungry. And current figures are already alarming.....read on   https://earth.org/challenges-farmers/

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Category: Agriculture
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Agriculture and Food Get Their Day—Again—at the Annual UN Climate Summit Governments and advocacy groups are urgently pushing countries to address greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, especially livestock production.Inside Climate News Georgina Gustin  November 22, 2024  Delegates at this year’s United Nations conference on climate change, known as COP29, have spent the last 11 days attempting to hammer out a deal on global climate finance, but this week the world’s farms and food systems got a little share of the spotlight. On Tuesday, at the summit’s Food, Agriculture and Water Day, negotiators, governments and advocacy groups gathered for dozens of discussions about how to better enlist agricultural practices in slowing the worst impacts of climate change. At the last two U.N. conferences, food and agriculture got more attention than in previous years, particularly at the 2023 event, held in Dubai. “In Dubai, there was quite a lot of momentum of food and food systems transformation,” said Clement Metivier, who currently leads advocacy effor ts for WWF-UK. “We want to maintain that dynamic.” The shifting focus, many observers said, is a long overdue and critically important acknowledgement of agriculture’s significant greenhouse gas emissions—about one-third of the global total. Left unchecked, emissions from agriculture and food systems will make it impossible to meet global climate goals, even if the world were to stop burning fossil fuels today. 
The primary goal of the annual gatherings is for countries and their delegations to negotiate how they will meet their commitments to lower climate-warming emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Every five years countries submit detailed climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  
The next NDCs are due in 2025, prompting agriculture advocates at this year’s summit to push countries to include more specifics on how they plan to reduce agricultural emissions—and include them in a way that accurately represents emissions from the food systems in their countries. A 2021 report from some of the world’s top climate scientists and U.N. agencies found that countries’ NDCs failed to convey the full extent of their agricultural emissions, often omitting deforestation linked to food production and food waste, which are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The report said the oversight meant that countries had even greater potential to cut emissions from their food sectors. At last year’s COP in Dubai, 160 countries, including the United States, signed on to the “Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action,” in which they agreed that “any path to fully achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement must include agriculture and food systems.”

Over the coming year, countries’ plans will start to take shape in the lead-up to the next COP, which is being held in Belem, Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.“COP30 is going to be a big opportunity to make the connection between deforestation and food,” Metivier said, noting that countriescommitted again last year to stop deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. “Next year is going to be a big opportunity to put that in the spotlight.”Some of the notable agriculture and food-related developments from the current COP include......More than 30 countries signed on to a pledge to reduce methane from food loss and waste, which accounts for between 8 and 10 percent of global methane emissions. The signatories include countries that emit nearly half of the world’s methane from organic waste, including the U.S. The pledge is part of the broader Global Methane Pledge to cut global methane emissions 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030.....and there's more    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22112024/agriculture-food-at-cop29-climate-summit/

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Category: Agriculture
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Autonomous tech is coming to farming. What will it mean for crops and workers who harvest them?Grist &APMELINA WALLING, ASSOCIATED PRESS and AYURELLA HORN-MULLER  October 28, 2024 HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Jeremy Ford hates wasting water. As a mist of rain sprinkled the fields around him in Homestead, Florida, Ford bemoaned how expensive it had been running a fossil fuel-powered irrigation system on his five-acre farm — and how bad it was for the planet. Earlier this month, Ford installed an automated underground system that uses a solar-powered pump to periodically saturate the roots of his crops, saving “thousands of gallons of water.” Although they may be more costly up front, he sees such climate-friendly investments as a necessary expense — and more affordable than expanding his workforce of two. t’s “much more efficient,” said Ford. “We’ve tried to figure out ‘How do we do it?’ with the least amount of adding labor.”

How autonomous is farm automation? Not completely – yet..........On some farms, driverless tractors churn through acres of corn, soybeans, lettuce and more. Such equipment is expensive, and requires mastering new tools, but row crops are fairly easy to automate. Harvesting small, non-uniform and easily damaged fruits like blackberries, or big citruses that take a bit of strength and dexterity to pull off a tree, would be much harder. That doesn’t deter scientists like Xin Zhang, a biological and agricultural engineer at Mississippi State University. Working with a team at Georgia Institute of Technology, she wants to apply some of the automation techniques surgeons use, and the object recognition power of advanced cameras and computers, to create robotic berry-picking arms that can pluck the fruits without creating a sticky, purple mess.The scientists have collaborated with farmers for field trials, but Zhang isn’t sure when the machine might be ready for consumers. Although robotic harvesting is not widespread, a smattering of products have hit the market, and can be seen working from Washington’s orchards to Florida’s produce farms.                                                                                   “I feel like this is the future,” Zhang said.But where she sees promise, others see problems,,,,,,read on    https://apnews.com/article/automation-tractors-robots-agriculture-labor-workforce-farming-df6087837925c14cfdd7ad2f80410a54?user_email=7a51910293749398eff22b8bf795b4f5ed4d3ebff046adf7c9ebf33811a9eca8&utm_medium=Afternoon_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru_AP&utm_campaign=AfternoonWire_Oct28_2024&utm_term=Afternoon%20Wire     

More Articles …

  1. New Initiative aims to Curb the Toxic Impacts of Agriculture.
  2. Area of Land used for Grazing is Vast Compared with the Meat and Milk produced. 
  3. Agriculture- Switching away from Meats more about identifying an Overlapping Consensus between Social Movements that Center Animals and those that Center Concerns like Climate Change and Public Health  
  4. United States- Immigration is the Demographic Savior too many Refuse to Acknowledge. 

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