A paper in Nature Climate Change finds that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures cause rice agriculture to release more of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4) for each kilogram of rice it produces.

A new report led by researchers at Winrock International, a U.S. environmental nonprofit organization, has developed an estimate of gross carbon emissions from tropical deforestation for the early 2000s that is considerably lower than other recently published estimates.

This paper, co written by FCRN mailing list member Kurt Schmidinger argues that the ‘missed potential carbon sink’ - - the carbon sequestering opportunity cost of using land for livestock (and presumably for other agricultural commodities as well as for other activities) needs to be taken into account in calculating the CO2eq emissions arising from any activity. 

A report published by the National Trust entitled What’s your beef? Compares the cradle-to-farm-gate emissions of ten tenanted National Trust farms, selected as representing a cross section of different beef production systems, including 4 organic, 4 conventional but extensive, and 2 semi intensive farms.

The International Livestock Research Institute and the World Bank hosted a meeting on livestock in Nairobi on the 12-13 March.  Some of the presentations may be of interest, in particular:

This study finds, unlike many LCAs, that the environmental (including GHG) impacts of the grass-based dairy farm are lower than for the farm where livestock are confined.  The area of land required is also lower in the grass-based than in the confinement based farm.

A couple of papers by FCRN mailing-list members on soil carbon sequestration: these conclude that the benefits of soil carbon sequestration activites (through the incorporation of organic matter and/or reduced tillage) have been overstated and may distract attention from other priorities, including halting deforestation and improving N use efficiency. 

This workshop was organised by the Food Climate Research Network and supported by Defra and the Committee on Climate Change on 21 January 2010. The workshop participants explored the role that soil carbon sequestration approaches can play in reducing agricultural emissions, the potential downsides and trade offs with other environmental concerns, and the gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled. 

This paper summarises the presentations and discussions that took place at a workshop organised by the Food Climate Research Network on 21 January 2010.