Home Volume 2, Issue 2 Mitigating Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Review of Scientific Information for Food System Planning

Related Papers

Content Visible to Subscribers Only

 

If you do not see a PDF on each article's webpage, you are not a subscriber to JAFSCD. (If you are a subscriber, please log in on the Home page to see the PDFs.) While the contents of the inaugural issue (volume 1, issue 1) are open to the public, the contents of issue 2 and beyond are provided for our subscribers only. Please subscribe to have access to this and any other JAFSCD content.

 

Some "Open Access Content" will be posted from time to time that is available to all viewers.

ISSUES

Not Ready To Subscribe Yet?


Sign up here to receive notification of new papers and other content we post. You won't be able to see full-text PDFs like subscribers can, but you'll be aware when new content is available.

Email*
 Prefix
 First Name
 Last Name
 Affiliation
 City
 State
 Country
  * = Required Field
 
Print E-mail

 

Mitigating Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions:

A Review of Scientific Information for Food System Planning

Tara L. Moreaua,*, Jennie Mooreb, and Kent Mullinixc

http://dx.doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2012.022.007, pp. 237–246

 

Abstract

Agriculture contributes significantly to anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), with estimates of agriculture's contribution ranging from 10% to 25% of total global GHG emissions per year. The science regarding mitigating (reducing and removing) GHGs through agriculture is conflicting and inconclusive. However, the severity and urgency of climate change and its potential effects on food security demonstrate that we must include mitigation within food system planning frameworks. In British Columbia, Canada, the provincial government has established significant GHG reduction targets for its agencies, and has called on local governments to reduce their carbon footprints through a charter and incentive, as well as through growth management legislation. At the same time, local governments, are giving increased attention to development of local/regional agri-food systems. However, GHG mitigation efforts do not yet seem to factor into local agri-food system discussions. Although frameworks for reporting agriculture GHGs exist, local government measurement of agriculture mitigation is hampered by a lack of agriculture GHG inventories, limited data availability, and the inherent variability in agriculture emissions and removals due to the dynamic nature of farm ecosystems. With the goal of informing local governments and food system planners on the importance of agriculture GHG mitigation, this paper (1) reviews the science of GHGs, (2) describes sources of agriculture GHG emissions and illustrates potential mitigation practices, (3) discusses the variability of agriculture mitigation science, (4) highlights the importance of agriculture GHG inventories, and (5) emphasizes the necessity for local agriculture mitigation strategies.

 

Keywords 

agriculture, carbon sequestration, climate change, food systems, greenhouse gas (GHG), GHG inventory, GHG mitigation, local governments

 

Affiliations

a,* Corresponding author:  Tara Moreau, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of British Columbia, Canada, 2060 Pine Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6J 4P8 Canada; +1-604-783-8571; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

b Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

c Institute for Sustainable Horticulture, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Note: Funding for this project was provided by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

 

 

        DONATE TO JAFSCD

 

Banner photos include a Cape Cod cranberry bog; a cranberry “screen house” used to grade fresh cranberries; farmland near Lake Placid, NY, in the Adirondack Mountains; Montmorency cherry trees on the Mission Peninsula of northern Michigan; the historic Round Barn in the South Mountain Apple Belt of Adams County, Pennsylvania; the “Sea of Grapes” district of the Lake Erie Concord Grape Belt, near Erie, Penn; a field of cabbages near Shortsville, NY, home to one of the world’s largest sauerkraut factories. All photos copyright by Duncan Hilchey.

 

Developed by  CyberSense.US