If we don’t begin to seriously engage in environmental protection, by 2100 the temperature on the planet may rise by 3.7-4.8 ° C. Climatologists warn: irreversible consequences for the environment will come already when warming by more than 2 ° C.
We shouldn’t attract not only politicians and scientists to the discussion, but also farmers as well. Here are 15 tips that farmers can do to reduce the climate change.
- Renewable energy
- Carbon absorption in fields
- Grow perennials
- Reduce plowing
- Keep swamps
- Responsible fertilizer use
- Responsible manure use
- No overfeeding animals
- Appropriate drainage systems
- Maximize carbon absorption
- Energy efficient heating
- Reduce personal fuel consumption
- Take care of your cattle
- Reduce shipping fossil consumption
- Protect your farmland
Renewable Energy and Farming
Energy demand and related services for socio-economic development and improving well-being and human health is growing. All societies need energy to meet basic human needs (e.g. lighting, cooking, spatial comfort, movement and communication) and for servicing production processes. Fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) increased and began to dominate the energy supply, which led to a rapid increased carbon dioxide (CO2).
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy supply have made significant contributions in the past in an increase in GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) concludes that that “Very likely that the increase in global average temperature observed since the mid-20th century is mostly caused by the observed increase in concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.”
Recent data confirm that fossil fuel consumption accounts for most global GHG emissions of anthropogenic origin. Emissions continue to rise, and by the end of 2010, CO2 concentrations exceeded a level of more than 390 ppm, 39% higher than the pre-industrial level. There are many options for reducing GHG emissions from the power system while satisfying global energy demand.
DO4 evaluated some of these options, for example, energy conservation and energy efficiency, avoiding the use of fossil fuels, renewable energy, like heat and electricity generated by wind, sun, wood, biogas and small-scale hydroelectric power plants.
Renewable energy technologies can play within such a portfolio of mitigation options. With great potential to mitigate climate change, renewable sources energy can also provide wider benefits.
Subject to their proper implementation of renewable energy technology contribute to socio-economic development, access to energy, energy security, and reduce negative impacts on the environment and human health.
Increase Carbon Absorption in Fields
An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to an increase in abnormal meteorological phenomena, instability and global climate change, a shift in the boundaries of geographical zones, the spread of dangerous diseases and pests to new territories, and the extinction of species.
On lands used in farming, degradation occurs due to soil erosion, fertility decreases and harmful substances accumulate. Many farms practice what is called mono-culture farming. This is where you grow the one crop in a field and while this can lead to increased profits, it the long run it can reduce fertility of your field. This is because if you have a certain plant dominating an ecosystem, it drains whatever nutrients it needs from the fields.
The diversity of your farming ecosystem, the number of species of living organisms is reduced, which leads to destabilization of the environment and irreparable loss of income.
To adapt to climate change, in particular for environmental safety, decisive measures must be taken to increase the absorption of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. To prevent that, you must Increase carbon absorption in your fields, take care of field structure and soil fertility and your plants will take care of you.
The only way to understand what is happening in the soil is to look inside. A farmer’s best, eco-friendly tool is a shovel. Take this tool and look into your soil to understand what your actions in the fields lead to.
What to look out for
- Seals/compact earth
- Bitter smells
- Excess surface water
- Multicoloured soil
If the discarded lump breaks horizontally, it means that there is a boundary layer in this soil that prevents the roots from growing and limits the movement of water. This can form what is a seal.
Seals can occur both due to tire pressure on the field surface. As a result, erosion begins within the soil. Working with wet soil, the farmer can easily aggravate the situation. When wet, small particles of soil begin to sink down, and compaction will become even stronger. The more compact your soil, the harder it is for your plants to thrive.
The bitter smell from the shovel indicates the presence of a limiting layer in the soil and accumulation of excess moisture in the upper layers, so what you should do is pay attention to the development of the root system. You have two major types of root systems, grassroots and taproots. Grass roots are shallow root systems but much more spread out. Taproot systems are much deeper but don’t cover as large of an area.
Plants with the help of grassroots can draw moisture not only from the upper layers, but also the lower ones, thereby preserving the natural development of the soil. The removal of excess water from the upper layer will also make sure that there is minimal leeching of nutrients from your fields.
The third factor to focus on is the color of the earth. Multi-colored soil, namely the different colors of the layers, indicate the depth of moisture transmission. In areas of compaction, water movement slows down, nutrients begin to settle, and red spots form on the soil. These are the eco-friendly ways to take care of the soil fertility, without harming the environment.
Grow Perennials for Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is a scientifically based alternation of crops and steam in time. Crop rotation is one of the main links in the agricultural system and represents the basis for all agronomic activities. The alternation of cultures in time is their change over the years in one field.
Field rotation means that each crop rotation successively passes through all fields. Crop rotation is one of the main links of the agricultural system and represents the basis for all agronomic measures, in particular, soil cultivation systems, fertilizer systems, measures to combat soil erosion, and protect crops from weeds, diseases and pests.
Crop rotation contributes to the replenishment and better use of soil nutrients and fertilizer, improving and maintaining the favorable physical and biological properties of the soil.
Plants protect the soil from water and wind erosion, preventing the spread of competitive species (weeds), diseases and pests of crops, reducing the pesticide load on soil, plants and improving environmental conditions, obtaining high-quality products. That’s why it is better to plant perennial plants, as part of the crop rotation.
Perennials allow for the field to rest for a year. There was another technique called fallowing that was used in the past to allow fields to rest but using perennials is taking it a step further. It provides a source of pollen for insect pollinators and this will in turn allow for your plants to be fertlised more easily all throughout your farm.
Crop rotation, the cultivation of several crops (rather than one) on farms, and combined planting are ways for higher crop safety under changing circumstances. Biodiversity may be called insurance against sudden changes. Soil microorganisms, pollinating insects and natural enemies for pests are friends of farmers. They care about the prevention of plant diseases and protect against pests, pollinate, transferring nutrients from organic matter to plants and creating a good loose field structure.
Reduce Plowing
Plowing is a tillage with a dump plow. When plowing, the arable layer is wrapped, crumbling and mixing the soil. Plowing to a depth of 20 centimetres is considered normal, otherwise – deep or shallow. The agronomist chooses the depth and direction of plowing, based on the needs of the cultivated plant, weed contamination of the soil, the presence of pests and diseases, the need for snow retention, the accumulation of melt water and protection against wind erosion.
Plowing is usually harmful to the atmosphere because it is done by the trucks, this naturally produces a lot of exhaust fumes. But it also means that a lot of the carbon that is stored in the soil can be released into the atmosphere.
As for the soil profile (all or most of it) consists of organic material, usually peat, of varying degrees of decomposition and botanical composition. The thickness of the peat mass exceeds 50 cm and can reach several meters or a half-meter peat mass is underlain by mineral rock.
The types of soils in the department are distinguished by the nature of the peat horizon (oligotrophic, eutrophic, or dry peat) and its underlying substrate.
Peat soils are formed in cool humid areas: tundra and taiga, where they form large tracts, which occupy thousands of hectares. In the European southern taiga, peat soils are found in relatively small areas, both on high bogs and lowlands, rarely on slopes; peat soils are practically absent in the forest-steppe.
Peat soils are formed mainly under mossy or grassy plant communities, less often pine or small-leaved forests. The main factor in the formation of peat soils is excessive stagnant moisture, both atmospheric and soil or sap.
Keep Swamps
“Drain the swamp” has long been to get rid of something unpleasant. In fact, the world needs more swamps – as well as other types of wetlands. These are some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth.
They are also underestimated but indispensable tools to slow down climate change and protect our communities from storms and floods. Scientists widely acknowledge that wetlands are extremely effective in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into living plants and carbon-rich soil.
Wetlands constantly remove and store atmospheric carbon. Plants take it out of the atmosphere and turn it into plant tissue and, ultimately, into the soil when they die and decompose. At the same time, microbes in bog soils emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, since they consume organic matter.
Natural wetlands typically absorb more carbon than they emit. But as the climate heats the soil of the wetlands, microbial metabolism increases, releasing additional greenhouse gases. In addition, drainage or disturbance of wetlands can release soil carbon very quickly.
For these reasons, it is essential to protect natural, undisturbed wetlands. Carbon soil carbon, accumulated over millennia and currently released into the atmosphere at an accelerating pace, cannot be restored over the next several decades, which is a critical window for solving the problem of climate change.
In some types of wetlands, it can take decades to millennia to develop soil conditions that support the accumulation of pure carbon. Other types, such as new wetlands, can quickly begin to accumulate carbon.
Many governments offer grants to farmers to keep swamps on their property to make up for loss of productive land. However one way that it can directly benefit you is having a source of turf to burn for your fires. Trust me, not much smells nicer than a turf fire.
Responsible Fertilizer Use
Excessive use of fertilizers and subsequent nutrient runoff impact water everywhere, including locally. One of the major contributors of algae bloom is nitrate fertilizer runoff. When fertilizer is applied to a field, nutrients are being added – something that all plants need to survive and grow. So you can see why it can be hard to convince farmers to not use them.
What might not be obvious, though, is that the soil may already have sufficient levels of these nutrients for plants to be strong and healthy. Brand-new fields or areas with very poor soils might lack nutrients, but most established fields have enough nutrients.
When healthy, well-established fields are fertilized anyway, the nutrients (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) that aren’t used by the grass run off with the next rain (or lawn watering) and end up in our streams and reservoirs where they can feed algae and create other problems. This can be further enhanced by sealed fields.
Under the influence of sunlight and hot weather, unicellular individuals and individual algae (phytoplankton) develop aggressively. Because of this, water changes not only color, but also properties. Thus, the cause of cloudy water in warm weather is not flooding and sediment, but flowering.
Due to the fact that the main reasons for the flowering of water in water bodies are algae and rubbish, in most cases the water blooms in water bodies where there is no current or it is weak. This water is not what what you want in your water systems or in your fields. It can lead to intense competition between your crops and the algae growing in the water.
Fertilizers used in agriculture are a significant source of nutrient pollution to water. In fact, nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from agricultural fields are some of the largest sources of pollution to coastal “dead zones” across the United States.
Perhaps the most infamous dead zone in the United States is an 8,500 square mile area (about the size of New Jersey) of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River drains into the Gulf. All these problems also cause global warming, which affects climate heavily. So be sure to use fertilizers carefully, because it can affect a climate change badly.
Responsible Manure Use
Agricultural soils, into which manure is applied as fertilizer in spring or summer, can emit more greenhouse gases, in particular nitrous oxide (N2O), in winter. This is due to the fact that winters are getting warmer and thawing soils more often. The indicators are significantly influenced by the method of applying manure.
One of the sources of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture is soil bacteria that process manure. During typical winters, when the soil freezes, the bacteria are at rest and wait for suitable conditions for new activity. When the soil warms up or thaws a bit, the bacteria “wake up” and start producing greenhouse gas.
Research teams have found that the method of manure application affects the emissions of N2O and carbon dioxide (CO2). So, during winter thaws, N2O emissions from subsoil manure were up to 20 times greater than emissions from surface and combined methods of fertilizer.
In addition, CO2 and N2O emissions were eight times greater in thawed soils than in frozen soils. Since arable land expands to the north as a result of the increase in the average temperature of the Earth, scientists fear that in the long run, the phenomenon they discovered will increase the contribution of agriculture to global warming, as winters become warmer and soil thaws more often.
Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from agricultural activities, especially poor distribution of manure. Use manure in accordance with agricultural practices: proper storage, use during the growing season and start immediately plowing after distribution on the field. This will reduce the harm to the global environment and slow down the climate change.
No Overfeeding Animals
The burning of fossil fuels for energy and animal agriculture are two of the biggest contributors to global warming, along with deforestation. Globally, fossil fuel-based energy is responsible for about 64% of human greenhouse gas emissions, with deforestation at about 18%, and animal agriculture between 13% and 18%.
So, animal agriculture and meat consumption are significant contributors to global warming, but far less so than fossil fuel combustion. Moreover, fossil fuels are an even bigger contributor to the problem in developed countries, which use more energy and have increased livestock production efficiency.
For example, in the United States, fossil fuel-based energy is responsible for about 80% of total greenhouse gas emissions as compared to about 3% from animal agriculture. Overall, animal agriculture is responsible for about 9% of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions globally.
Animal agriculture is also a significant source of other greenhouse gases. For example, ruminant animals like cattle produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The livestock sector is responsible for about 37% of human-caused methane emissions, and about 65% of human nitrous oxide emissions (mainly from manure), globally.
That’s why it is very important to feed the animals properly. We should Take care of the animals and provide them with the necessary nutrition, but without an excess of protein: if they cannot use it for growth, then it simply stands out in the form of manure. As it was mentioned in the article before, manure causes fair share of damage to the environment, which causes climate change.
For the appropiate diet for animals, click on the relevant links to my other articles on these topics!
Appropriate Drainage Systems
The filtration field is also called “underground drainage” – it is a separate element of the sewage treatment system. These facilities carry out biological treatment of water and drain water through a layer of soil.
The dispersion fields are allocated in a special way and are separately equipped with treatment equipment. The filtration field consists of a septic tank and three types of pipes – these are the inlet, distribution pipes and the pipe system for dispersion.
In order for the filtration field to function as efficiently as possible, it is necessary to take into account the type of soil on which the wastewater treatment system is installed. There are several types of soil. These are sand, clay, peat and loam. Also, do not forget about the groundwater level on the site. A high level is 0.5 meters from the ground, low – 3 meters from the ground. In addition, a variable level of groundwater is separately distinguished – it can be different at different times of the year.
This is very important, since soil contains many bad substances from the fertilization and other methods of farming effects. These substances often produce green gases, that causes the climate change. By taking care of the field draining system, you prevent the spread of harmful green gas in the atmosphere and therefore slow the climate change.
Maximize Carbon Absorption
Carbon sequestration by agricultural land is rated as one of the most important ways to combat climate change. The amount of organic matter and humus in soils is also necessary for soil fertility. Good fertility and field structure is also improved due to field productivity.
If the fields contain organic matter and they have a good structure, then the fields are more resistant to different weather conditions: if dry, they can retain more moisture, and if it is damp, they retain nutrients in the fields, instead of leakage. If the field structure is in good condition, then farmers in different weather conditions are one less concern.
Energy Efficient Heating
The usual heaters burn lot of oxygen, which causes climate changes. They usually release fair amount of carbon in the air, which is lately absorbed by the atmosphere and thus causes the global warming and climate change. One of the most effective ways to reduce the effect is to use the infrared heaters.
The main advantage of infrared heaters is the ability not to dissipate heat, but to heat the desired object, by directing the radiation in the right direction. At the same time, thermal radiation, like ordinary light, is not absorbed by air, therefore, all energy from the device without loss reaches heated surfaces and people in its area of effect. Due to the fact that such a heater primarily heats objects and surfaces, a person feels comfortable even at lower air temperatures.
At the same time, the rate of heat supply is incomparably higher than that of other heaters – heat transfer begins already 27 seconds after turning on the device. Another advantage of infrared heaters is the fact that they practically do not “burn” oxygen due to the low temperature of infrared lamps.
Since such models heat up the air in the room slightly, the decrease in humidity during their operation is not so significant in comparison with other types of heaters. Silent operation of such installations provides additional benefits.
Reduce Personal Fuel Consumption
The main standardized toxic components of car exhaust are carbon, nitrogen and hydrocarbon oxides. In addition, saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons, aldehydes, carcinogens, soot and other components enter the atmosphere with exhaust gases.
The largest share of the total amount of substances entering the atmosphere is occupied by carbon monoxide, dust, sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide. Manganese, arsenic, lead, phosphorus, mercury vapor, etc. are emitted in slightly smaller amounts. Also, in the process of steelmaking, emissions into the atmosphere contain vapor-gas mixtures.
Drive high-pressure tires to minimize rolling resistance. But saving fuel in this way, you will subject the tires themselves to accelerated wear, the control will become less clear and there will be a risk of wheel depressurization.
Reduced pressure in the tires accelerates the wear of suspension parts and the chassis as a whole, moreover, such a tire can “shoot” at any time. You have to choose what is more important for you. The correct selection of automobile wheel tires with the corresponding tread pattern also gives fuel economy, only the quality of the road surface should be taken into account.
Take care of your cattle
A serious problem is connected with cattle. This is methane, a greenhouse gas released by ruminants. In its greenhouse ability, it is 28 times superior to carbon dioxide. On average, one cow releases 20 grams of methane per kilogram of dry matter in the feed. That is, if you count on the equivalent greenhouse effect, – 560 grams of carbon dioxide.
During the day, the cow, eating 12-14 kg of feed (in terms of dry matter), emits under 7 kg of such equivalent carbon dioxide, or 2.5 tons per year. That is, one and a half billion cows on the Earth annually supply to the atmosphere an amount of methane equivalent to 3-4 Gt of carbon dioxide, or 10% of all anthropocentric emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuels.
This tremendous amount of methane is causing an increasingly fierce attack on livestock by global warming fighters. The livestock farmers, being in a defensive defense, are trying to somehow find a way to reduce cattle methane emissions. One of the ways is to change the cattle diet, give them more water and supply them with high quality feed.
Reduce shipping fossil consumption
Shipping causes a lot of damage to the environment. This is due to the fact, that the shipment is usually done by trucks, airplanes, cars, etc. which produce toxic fumes. These fumes usually cause the climate change, because they consist of carbon.
If we reduce the shipping fossil consumption and go to the local market, the problem will be reduced. By doing so, you reduce the consumption of fuel and reduce the harmful exhaust in the atmosphere.
Protect your farmland
Farms do not stand alone. Each is an anchor of stability for other nearby farms. Each is a thread in a web of neighboring farms, farm businesses, and other human endeavors that support and rely upon each other.
When one thread is lost, the negative consequences ripple through the community. When many threads are lost, there comes a point when the web fails—when farms and farm businesses no longer have the mutual support needed to keep the local farm economy viable.
Farmlands are important for keeping the eco-diversity. If we ruin the balance of nature, we might get fatal results. Replacing farmlands with factories and industrial buildings will cause global warming and climate change. That’s why it is very important to keep your farmlands safe.