WASHINGTON
,
April 2, 2024
(press release)
–
"Agricultural conservation easements are an essential - and too often overlooked - tool in our efforts to address climate change," said
The white paper, entitled "Agricultural Land Protection: An Essential Tool for Fighting Climate Change," presents five ways in which agricultural conservation easements help mitigate climate change, positing that they: * Avoid the conversion of agricultural land to developed uses with higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. * Encourage greater adoption of practices that sequester carbon, reduce GHG emissions, and build climate resilience. * Retain the benefits of conservation practices and the potential of lands to serve as a carbon sink. * Reduce the threat of converting grasslands and more marginal land into production. * Protect other lands associated with farms and ranches - like woods and wetlands - that often provide valuable carbon sequestration. The paper builds off of survey results - published by AFT last September - of owners whose land was protected by the federal Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program (FRPP). This program is the precursor to the
"We found that participation in the federal farmland protection program resulted in a so-called 'permanence syndrome,'" said AFT Director of
The FRPP survey shows higher adoption rates of climate-smart practices by owners of eased land than the general farming population. For instance, 65 percent of respondents used conservation tillage and 57 percent implemented cover crops or green manure crops. The National Agricultural Statistic Service's 2017 Census of Agriculture of the general farming population shows 34 percent of farms using no-till or reduced tillage and 10 percent implementing cover crops. The white paper also points to how permanently protecting agricultural land can avoid GHG emissions when coupled with Smart Growth. This approach has been taken by the
"To date, over 8 million farmland acres have been protected," said Coffin. "While this is an incredible achievement, it represents less than 1 percent of our nation's farmland. If we are to meet our climate goals and feed a growing world, we must redouble our support for agricultural conservation easement programs at all levels of government."
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* * * * * * Original text here: https://farmland.org/aft-releases-new-paper-on-the-climate-benefits-of-agricultural-conservation-easements/
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