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COLUMN: Save the world, one garden at a time

Carbon farming in soil a legit way to combat climate change.
Jill Cunningham

Are you saving the world this spring? What I mean is, are you growing a garden?

I will zoom farther out so you can see the connection.

In elementary school we learned that plants absorb carbon dioxide and sunlight to create oxygen and, among other things, carbohydrates. If we dig a little deeper we learn that 40 per cent of these carbohydrates are released through the roots as exudates, which feed soil organisms such as fungi and bacteria. These little guys return the favour and deliver nutrients back to the plant. This sweet beneficial relationship ensures the growth of soil life and the cycling of carbon. As fungi grows, its hyphae – long, branching structures – tunnel through the soil, creating structure, storing carbon, and holding moisture.

Have you picked up a handful of soil? Was it dry, powdery, and fine like dust? Was it soft, squishy, and moist like a sponge? Build your soil with regenerative practices such as composting; no or minimum till – that is, refraining from turning the soil and exposing the soil life to the air; growing a cover crop such as clover to keep the soil from being bare; and rotating crops to avoid depleting sections of your garden of certain nutrients favoured by one plant species. All of this will help to build soil health and sequester carbon. If your soil has some body, some structure, and some lushness, you have been capturing carbon. Your soil will absorb and hold water and provide greater and more delicious, nutrient-dense yields.

This is lovely and inspiring, but how are we saving the world here? As agriculture has become more industrialized there has been a significant increase in our dependence on fossil fuels and other finite resources used to feed our food crops. We have also seen an increase in pollution – both air and water – and a serious increase in the release of carbon dioxide due to tilling. This damage occurs during food production alone, never mind the processing, packaging, and distribution. OK, Cunningham, reign it in here. We are exploring carbon sequestration in soil as a way to combat climate change.

Gabriel Popkins, a writer for Yale Environment 360, says roughly one-fourth of all carbon emitted by humans globally since the Industrial Revolution has been lost from soils. Carboncycle.org describes carbon farming as implementing practices known to improve the rate of carbon dioxide removal from our atmosphere and convert it to plant material and organic soil matter. “Well-managed soils could sequester one to two billion tons of the ten billion tons of carbon we release per year,” says PhD Christopher Field.

Soil building and conservation adopted globally could provide nearly 10 per cent of the carbon reduction needed to avoid breaking the two-degree barrier of dangerous climate change. It could be done economically in less than 15 years, according to The Nature Conservancy. This puts us in good stead as we implement other strategies toward our goal of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

So, will we be a part of the solution and grow a garden? Or maybe buy locally from others who grow a garden using soil-building practices? This summer we can save the world one garden-fresh meal at a time.

Jill Cunningham grew up in St. Albert, has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta, and is passionate about nature, the environment, and building community.

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