Real Carbon Capture and Sequestration

While Australian governments state and federal, past and present, throw
huge wads of cash at unproven ‘clean coal’ technology they are ignoring
a proven method of pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it.

A thirty year scientific trial by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania USA placed conventional, industrial
farming systems and organic systems side by side to compare yields and other outcomes. This long
term studyhas not only shown that organic practices give yields as high as industrialfarms but also
that the organic soil takes up and stores huge amounts
of carbon. Industrial farming, on the other hand, removes carbon from the soil and uses greenhouse
intensive petrochemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Rodale Institute has proved that organic practices can remove about 7,845 kg of carbon dioxide from
the air each year and sequester it in a hectare of farmland. Thus if all 434 million acres
(175 million hectares)of American cropland was converted to organic practices, it would remove 1.3 billion
tonnes of CO2 per year the equivalent of taking 217 million cars off the road – nearly 88 percent of all
cars in the America today and more than a third of all the automobiles in the world.

Paul Hepperly, Ph.D., research director at The Rodale Institute states, "We've shown that organic practices
can do better than anyone thought at sequestering carbon, and could counteract up to 40 percent of global
greenhouse gas output." Hepperly, who is helping other nations implement organic farming systems,
explains that using soil-building crops and compost to support cash crops helps to build soil carbon levels
while keeping productivity in line with conventional systems.

Andre Leu, the chairman of the Organic Federation of Australia , said “The important point about this
ground breaking research is that the amount of CO2 sequestered is based on what has been achieved
through current organic farming practices. This is not a theoretical estimate as in some of the tree plantation
models or unproven like the millions of dollars being spent on clean coal or mechanical geo sequestration
trials.”

The Rodale Institute studies were originally published in 2003 – and completely ignored by governments
everywhere.

Why have our representatives been ignoring a simple, cheap and effective means of reducing our
carbon footprint? Perhaps it’s easier to throw money and resources at one big, headline project that
promises ‘business as usual’ instead of looking at how we need to change our damaging ways.
Unfortunately the hard facts of Global Warming and Peak Oil mean that ‘business as usual’ is not
an option.

“Our industrial farming techniques will not survive the end of cheap and plentiful oil” said
Queensland Conservation board member and organics expert, Jerry Coleby-Williams. “We urgently
need to lessen our dependence on petrochemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides which are
becoming more expensive by the day. These proven organic techniques will have the double benefit
of helping our farmers to transition to post-Peak Oil production while pulling carbon out of the
atmosphere much faster than any technological fix currently on the drawing board. ”

There’s even a third benefit. As the Rodale study shows, the amount of carbon sequestered in the
soil can be measured. Australian farmers who convert to organic techniques should be able to
accumulate and trade carbon credits under the upcoming Australian Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Efficiency and renewable energy production will lower our carbon output. A planned and sensible
transition to organic farming practices across Australia will begin to sequester the carbon already
in the atmosphere while giving farmers a whole new income stream” said Coleby-Williams.
“Everybody wins!”

Further information

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics

(http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/
D085226E582B7D72CA2571D8001F5A38?opendocument )

2,694,000 hectares of land in Queensland is used for cropping. Applying the Rodale research to
that land area gives the potential to sequester more than 21 million tonnes of carbon per annum
or 13% of Queensland's total annual emissions of 157 million tonnes. 

Read the Rodale Institute paper at
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/Rodale_Research_Paper.pdf (approx 1.9 Mb)

In November 2005 Queensland Conservation published an article on this subject in our newsletter Spinifex.

You can download and read a pdf version of the newsletter

by clicking the following link  spinifex_1105 1.83 Mb

Update. The ABC Landline programme covered the use of compost as an alternative to chemical fertilisers and mentioned some aspects of its greenhouse sequestering capabilities. Watch the online video Here