Carbon farming: fighting New Zealand’s agricultural emissions | FT Food Revolution

Agriculture accounts for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand. It’s one reason the government is encouraging farmers to grow trees for carbon credits, which can then be sold, mainly to large companies looking to offset their emissions. Juliet Speedy meets a couple of New Zealand’s carbon farmers and explores exactly how the scheme works.

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[Whateverhappened_to_Fay_Wray]

acidic monocultures of Pine usually. Really hope they pursue a transition into more natives under the canopy of the pines that eventually phase them out.

[tparker]

Ironic how that farmer was using herbicides to kill the gorse so pines could be planted instead, even though gorse is well-known to be a succession species that fertilizes the soil and regenerates native forest on its own. This is one big ridiculous folly after another.

There are many issues with planting pines for carbon sequestration. It creates a biodiversity nightmare (a forest of just trees and no native habitat), it's costly for farmers to pay for the pine seedlings and planting, the carbon sequestration actually peaks at 25 years and then drops off, and these plantations do not help to conserve native biodiversity that is often threatened in New Zealand.

Native forest (easily regenerated through gorse) is ecologically proper for the region, it preserves biodiversity, creates crucial habitat for Animal, Plant, Insect, and Fungi species, assists in water filtration and long-term carbon sequestration as the forest matures, the seed source is already there for native plants, it creates a food-source for wildlife, nutrient cycling of organic matter creates new topsoils, and land-owners will benefit from long-term carbon credits as the forest grows for decades if not hundreds of years (no reason to harvest the trees).

[Spectacurl]

In Costa Rica we have done something like this since 90s. Meat production in CR is carbon positive thanks to this program :)

[kathirko]

The whole carbon farming sounds like a confession after committing an irrecoverable sin. 
or is it something like blackmail, which evidently they can do but demand money to do it?

[phil_]

"This is a Diameter Tape" - because I can't divide by Pi! 😀🤓

[bdhanes]

💚 My heart sinks when I see the eyesore monocultures throughout Aotearoa. Championing endemic diverse flora. 💚

[michaelkingy]

🤦🏻‍♂️ a diverse habitats is better, not using herbicide to remove gourse and vegetation to plant a single species of tree.

[Skybar]

How bout humans cut down on meat consumption?

[sg]

Any ground cover sinks carbon...grasses..crops....

[jeanlefranc]

50 dollars per hectare is not a lot, but it’s a step in the right direction.