Conference - The Carbon Ranch: Using Food and Stewardship to Build Soil and Fight Climate Change
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Seth Itzkan
Oct 24, 2010, 7:08:55 PM10/24/10
to SCA, GlobalClimateChange
Hi Friends,
"The Carbon Ranch: Using Food and Stewardship to
Build Soil and Fight Climate Change."
Climate change is the most pressing issue confronting humanity. It is also a tremendous opportunity. Right now, the only possibility of large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is through plant photosynthesis and other land-based carbon sequestration activities. Strategies include: enriching soil carbon, farming with perennials, employing climate-friendly livestock practices, conserving natural habitat, restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, and producing local food. Over the past decade, many of these strategies have been demonstrated to be both practical and profitable. A carbon ranch bundles them into an economic whole with the aim of creating climate-friendly landscapes that are both healthy ecologically and the source of healthy food. In this conference we will explore this exciting new frontier and learn from `carbon pioneers' from around the world.
Background: A United Nations report released in 2006 titled "Livestock's Long Shadow" identified the livestock industry as a significant contributor to climate change. The report determined "that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport." This was due to: chemical fertilizer production, deforestation for pasture, cultivation of feed crops (corn), feed transport, animal production (fermentation and methane and nitrous oxide emissions) and the transportation of animal products. The report estimates that livestock contributes to about 9% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions.
Author Michael Pollan put the problem this way: "We transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases."
The answer, Pollan says, is to "resolarize" the American economy - which means weaning Americans off their heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put them back on a diet of contemporary sunshine. "If any part of the modern economy can be freed from its dependence on oil and successfully resolarized," Pollan writes, "surely it is food."
We believe cattle production, done on grass at a local scale in combination with conservation practices that improve land health and sequester carbon, can be "solarized" relatively easily. The key is to make it economic, and thus replicable.
The Carbon Ranch Model: Our three-part model combines ecological and economic goals:
1) Progressive Cattle Management: Over the past twenty years, a suite of innovative management methods have been developed worldwide that employ livestock as conservation agents, including noxious weed eradication, "herd effect," planned grazing strategies, and low-stress livestock handling (collectively we call it `The New Ranch'). Increased land health leads to increased grass cover which leads to increased carbon sequestration.
2) Local Grassfed Beef: Animals raised on grass, processed nearby and consumed in a local community, have a small carbon footprint compared to commodity livestock production (there is some debate in the literature about the trade-off of `food miles' and increased methane production that results when cows eat grass). Grassfed beef is also viewed as healthier than feedlot beef (corn-based) by many researchers and members of the public.
3) Conservation Practices that Improve Ecosystem Function: Much of the arid West exists in a degraded ecological condition. In recent years, a suite of restoration methodologies have been developed that improve ecosystem function, including: the riparian restoration strategies pioneered by Bill Zeedyk, water harvesting from improved rural roads, and upland erosion mitigation. These (non-cattle) conservation practices improve land health and thus contribute to carbon sequestration.
Our 9th Annual Conference: A carbon ranch reduces its carbon footprint, enriches its soil, maintains a healthy carbon cycle, conserves natural habitat, restores degraded watersheds, and provides climate-friendly co-benefits, including grassfed meat.
Please see info on this important conference. It's not too late to sign up and take a November jaunt out to New Mexico. Jim and I will be there. See info, and videos from Abe Collins (of Carbon Farmers of America) below.
Best,
- Seth
The Quivira Coalition's 9th Annual Conference
November 10-12, Albuquerque, NM
Embassy Suites Hotel
Build Soil and Fight Climate Change."
Climate change is the most pressing issue confronting humanity. It is also a tremendous opportunity. Right now, the only possibility of large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is through plant photosynthesis and other land-based carbon sequestration activities. Strategies include: enriching soil carbon, farming with perennials, employing climate-friendly livestock practices, conserving natural habitat, restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, and producing local food. Over the past decade, many of these strategies have been demonstrated to be both practical and profitable. A carbon ranch bundles them into an economic whole with the aim of creating climate-friendly landscapes that are both healthy ecologically and the source of healthy food. In this conference we will explore this exciting new frontier and learn from `carbon pioneers' from around the world.
Background: A United Nations report released in 2006 titled "Livestock's Long Shadow" identified the livestock industry as a significant contributor to climate change. The report determined "that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport." This was due to: chemical fertilizer production, deforestation for pasture, cultivation of feed crops (corn), feed transport, animal production (fermentation and methane and nitrous oxide emissions) and the transportation of animal products. The report estimates that livestock contributes to about 9% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions.
Author Michael Pollan put the problem this way: "We transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases."
The answer, Pollan says, is to "resolarize" the American economy - which means weaning Americans off their heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put them back on a diet of contemporary sunshine. "If any part of the modern economy can be freed from its dependence on oil and successfully resolarized," Pollan writes, "surely it is food."
We believe cattle production, done on grass at a local scale in combination with conservation practices that improve land health and sequester carbon, can be "solarized" relatively easily. The key is to make it economic, and thus replicable.
The Carbon Ranch Model: Our three-part model combines ecological and economic goals:
1) Progressive Cattle Management: Over the past twenty years, a suite of innovative management methods have been developed worldwide that employ livestock as conservation agents, including noxious weed eradication, "herd effect," planned grazing strategies, and low-stress livestock handling (collectively we call it `The New Ranch'). Increased land health leads to increased grass cover which leads to increased carbon sequestration.
2) Local Grassfed Beef: Animals raised on grass, processed nearby and consumed in a local community, have a small carbon footprint compared to commodity livestock production (there is some debate in the literature about the trade-off of `food miles' and increased methane production that results when cows eat grass). Grassfed beef is also viewed as healthier than feedlot beef (corn-based) by many researchers and members of the public.
3) Conservation Practices that Improve Ecosystem Function: Much of the arid West exists in a degraded ecological condition. In recent years, a suite of restoration methodologies have been developed that improve ecosystem function, including: the riparian restoration strategies pioneered by Bill Zeedyk, water harvesting from improved rural roads, and upland erosion mitigation. These (non-cattle) conservation practices improve land health and thus contribute to carbon sequestration.
Our 9th Annual Conference: A carbon ranch reduces its carbon footprint, enriches its soil, maintains a healthy carbon cycle, conserves natural habitat, restores degraded watersheds, and provides climate-friendly co-benefits, including grassfed meat.
Conference Schedule
The Quivira Coalition's 9th Annual Conference
November 10-12th, 2010, in Albuquerque, New Mexico
"The Carbon Ranch: Using Food and Stewardship
to Build Soil and Fight Climate Change."
All lunches are included with your registration
Wednesday, November 10
Pre-Conference Workshop: Improving the Carbon Cycle on Your Land
8:30 - Noon (10-10:30 Break)
"Bringing Life Back to Your Land: moisture, microbes, and climate change"
Craig Sponholtz, Dryland Solutions, Inc. and Doug Weatherbee, Soil Doctor
In recent years there have been many parallel developments in the fields of watershed restoration and soil microbiology. It is apparent that there are numerous opportunities for these fields to intersect and integrate in ways that have yet to be discovered. This combination promises to dramatically increase the productivity of degraded rangelands through the use large-scale hydration of the landscape and targeted improvements to soil microbiology. We will introduce ways that virtually any landowner can integrate land management practices such as erosion control, tree thinning and re-vegetation with small scale composting and compost tea production. Our discussion will include practices that will lead to improvements in soil moisture, microbiology, productivity, sequestration of Carbon and greenhouse gas emission reductions. Our goal is generate further interest and application by landowners.
12-1:30 Lunch
1:30-5:00 (3-3:30 Break)
"Mob-grazing workshop"
Greg Judy, rancher and 'mob-grazing' educator, Missouri
Since switching from Management Intensive Grazing to Holistic High Density Planned Grazing four years ago, Greg and Jan Judy have doubled their stocking rates. Within the next two years they will have to double their cow numbers again to eat all the forage. By concentrating on trampling litter everyday, which feeds the soil microbes and earthworms, the forages on Judy farms have exploded. They use no lime, no fertilizer, no seeding, no chemicals, no equipment. The Judys focus solely on increasing animal density, monitoring animal performance and full recovery periods between grazings. The pastures feel like sponges when you walk on them, the previously dry creeks have started flowing again. Earthworm castings cover the soils throughout the farms. The Judys have found that ranching can be very profitable when they follow what worked perfect for centuries in nature.
5-7:00
Annual Meeting of the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance (SWGLA) in the Sierra Room
Open to all. Includes dinner w/ suggested donation of $15.
RSVP to Laurie at 970-390-5597 or thepoe...@hotmail.com
SWGLA Website
Special Evening Event: 7-9:00 - Sandia Ballroom
Opening Presentation: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
by Dr. David Montgomery, University of Washington
This talk will highlight the role dirt plays in the rise and fall of civilizations globally.
Thursday, November 11 - Sandia Ballroom
8:15-8:30 Introduction by Courtney White about Conference goals
Session I: A global perspective
8:30
"Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use."
Sara Scherr, Ecoagriculture Partners, Washington, D.C.
9:15
"Livestock, Landscapes and Livelihoods: the contribution of global grazing-lands to climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Constance Neely, consultant, Nairobi, Kenya
10:00 BREAK
Session II: Case Study / the Marin Carbon Project
10:30
"Range Science and Range Management: Finding Common Ground."
John Wick, rancher and Director of the Marin Carbon Project, California
and
Dr. Jeffry Creque, researcher, California
12:00-1:30 LUNCH
1:30 Keynote Address:
"Soil building through microbial pathways: mechanisms for soil carbon sequestration."
Dr. Christine Jones, Founder of the Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme
2:45 BREAK
Session III: Putting It To Work
3:15
"Healing The World With Holistic High Density Grazing."
Greg Judy, rancher and 'mob-grazing' educator, Missouri
4-4:45
"Organic Management Strategies to Improve Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration"
Jeff Moyer, Farm Director for the Rodale Institute, Pennsylvania
5:30-7:30 Currier Award Ceremony - Sierra Room
The Michael S. Currier Environmental Service Award, administered by the New Mexico Community Foundation and sponsored by the Thaw Charitable Trust, honors individuals for their contributions to the environmental health of the American Southwest. This year the award will be presented to Courtney White, author and co-Founder of the Quivira Coalition at a reception and ceremony with wine and hors d' oeuvres. A production by award winning documentarian Jack Loeffler, will highlight the success of Courtney's contribution to the health of working landscapes in the American Southwest. Seating is limited to the capacity of the room
Friday, November 12 - Sandia Ballroom
Session IV: The Urban Perspective
8:30
"Underground Economics: Making Markets to Solve Cities' Problems Through Soil Formation."
Abe Collins, New Soil Matrix, Inc. and New Soil Quantum, Inc., Vermont
9:15
"A Watershed Perspective"
Brock Dolman, Director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, California
10-10:30 BREAK
Session V: Case Study / The Ranney Ranch
10:30
"Working with Carbon: The Interplay of Range Management, Grassfed Beef, Wind and Biomass,"
Nancy Ranney, Ranney Ranch Grassfed Beef, New Mexico
and
Steven Apfelbaum, Applied Ecological Services, Wisconsin
12:00-1:30 LUNCH
Session VI: Putting It All Together
1:30
"Sequestering Carbon for the Carbon Market: Doing it and Proving it"
Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke U., North Carolina
2:15
"Carbon Ranching and Agrarianism: the Emerging Fifth Wave of Conservation in America."
Courtney White, The Quivira Coalition, New Mexico
3:00-3:30 BREAK
3:30 - 5pm
Special Session:Young Agrarians Respond to the Challenge of Climate Change
A Dialogue with Conference Speakers and Audience Members
Moderator: Severine von Tscharner
with:
Amber Reed
Vanessa Prielson
Sam Ryerson
6:30pm - Burch Award Banquet - Sierra Room
The $20,000 Burch award will be presented to The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance and The Quivira Coalition Radical Center Awards for; Ranching, Conservation, Civil Service and Research. (to be announced)
This meal will be all local with donated grassfed beef (vegetarians will be accommodated).
November 10-12th, 2010, in Albuquerque, New Mexico
"The Carbon Ranch: Using Food and Stewardship
to Build Soil and Fight Climate Change."
All lunches are included with your registration
Wednesday, November 10
Pre-Conference Workshop: Improving the Carbon Cycle on Your Land
8:30 - Noon (10-10:30 Break)
"Bringing Life Back to Your Land: moisture, microbes, and climate change"
Craig Sponholtz, Dryland Solutions, Inc. and Doug Weatherbee, Soil Doctor
In recent years there have been many parallel developments in the fields of watershed restoration and soil microbiology. It is apparent that there are numerous opportunities for these fields to intersect and integrate in ways that have yet to be discovered. This combination promises to dramatically increase the productivity of degraded rangelands through the use large-scale hydration of the landscape and targeted improvements to soil microbiology. We will introduce ways that virtually any landowner can integrate land management practices such as erosion control, tree thinning and re-vegetation with small scale composting and compost tea production. Our discussion will include practices that will lead to improvements in soil moisture, microbiology, productivity, sequestration of Carbon and greenhouse gas emission reductions. Our goal is generate further interest and application by landowners.
12-1:30 Lunch
1:30-5:00 (3-3:30 Break)
"Mob-grazing workshop"
Greg Judy, rancher and 'mob-grazing' educator, Missouri
Since switching from Management Intensive Grazing to Holistic High Density Planned Grazing four years ago, Greg and Jan Judy have doubled their stocking rates. Within the next two years they will have to double their cow numbers again to eat all the forage. By concentrating on trampling litter everyday, which feeds the soil microbes and earthworms, the forages on Judy farms have exploded. They use no lime, no fertilizer, no seeding, no chemicals, no equipment. The Judys focus solely on increasing animal density, monitoring animal performance and full recovery periods between grazings. The pastures feel like sponges when you walk on them, the previously dry creeks have started flowing again. Earthworm castings cover the soils throughout the farms. The Judys have found that ranching can be very profitable when they follow what worked perfect for centuries in nature.
5-7:00
Annual Meeting of the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance (SWGLA) in the Sierra Room
Open to all. Includes dinner w/ suggested donation of $15.
RSVP to Laurie at 970-390-5597 or thepoe...@hotmail.com
SWGLA Website
Special Evening Event: 7-9:00 - Sandia Ballroom
Opening Presentation: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
by Dr. David Montgomery, University of Washington
This talk will highlight the role dirt plays in the rise and fall of civilizations globally.
Thursday, November 11 - Sandia Ballroom
8:15-8:30 Introduction by Courtney White about Conference goals
Session I: A global perspective
8:30
"Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use."
Sara Scherr, Ecoagriculture Partners, Washington, D.C.
9:15
"Livestock, Landscapes and Livelihoods: the contribution of global grazing-lands to climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Constance Neely, consultant, Nairobi, Kenya
10:00 BREAK
Session II: Case Study / the Marin Carbon Project
10:30
"Range Science and Range Management: Finding Common Ground."
John Wick, rancher and Director of the Marin Carbon Project, California
and
Dr. Jeffry Creque, researcher, California
12:00-1:30 LUNCH
1:30 Keynote Address:
"Soil building through microbial pathways: mechanisms for soil carbon sequestration."
Dr. Christine Jones, Founder of the Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme
2:45 BREAK
Session III: Putting It To Work
3:15
"Healing The World With Holistic High Density Grazing."
Greg Judy, rancher and 'mob-grazing' educator, Missouri
4-4:45
"Organic Management Strategies to Improve Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration"
Jeff Moyer, Farm Director for the Rodale Institute, Pennsylvania
5:30-7:30 Currier Award Ceremony - Sierra Room
The Michael S. Currier Environmental Service Award, administered by the New Mexico Community Foundation and sponsored by the Thaw Charitable Trust, honors individuals for their contributions to the environmental health of the American Southwest. This year the award will be presented to Courtney White, author and co-Founder of the Quivira Coalition at a reception and ceremony with wine and hors d' oeuvres. A production by award winning documentarian Jack Loeffler, will highlight the success of Courtney's contribution to the health of working landscapes in the American Southwest. Seating is limited to the capacity of the room
Friday, November 12 - Sandia Ballroom
Session IV: The Urban Perspective
8:30
"Underground Economics: Making Markets to Solve Cities' Problems Through Soil Formation."
Abe Collins, New Soil Matrix, Inc. and New Soil Quantum, Inc., Vermont
9:15
"A Watershed Perspective"
Brock Dolman, Director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, California
10-10:30 BREAK
Session V: Case Study / The Ranney Ranch
10:30
"Working with Carbon: The Interplay of Range Management, Grassfed Beef, Wind and Biomass,"
Nancy Ranney, Ranney Ranch Grassfed Beef, New Mexico
and
Steven Apfelbaum, Applied Ecological Services, Wisconsin
12:00-1:30 LUNCH
Session VI: Putting It All Together
1:30
"Sequestering Carbon for the Carbon Market: Doing it and Proving it"
Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke U., North Carolina
2:15
"Carbon Ranching and Agrarianism: the Emerging Fifth Wave of Conservation in America."
Courtney White, The Quivira Coalition, New Mexico
3:00-3:30 BREAK
3:30 - 5pm
Special Session:Young Agrarians Respond to the Challenge of Climate Change
A Dialogue with Conference Speakers and Audience Members
Moderator: Severine von Tscharner
with:
Amber Reed
Vanessa Prielson
Sam Ryerson
6:30pm - Burch Award Banquet - Sierra Room
The $20,000 Burch award will be presented to The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance and The Quivira Coalition Radical Center Awards for; Ranching, Conservation, Civil Service and Research. (to be announced)
This meal will be all local with donated grassfed beef (vegetarians will be accommodated).
"Rapid topsoil formation is the greatest priority and the greatest opportunity of our time".
- Abe Collins, Carbon Farmers of America.
"Is a matter of inches (of soil formation) something to write the New York Times about? In this case, yes".
- Abe Collins, Carbon Farmers of America
Comments from Abe Collins, Carbon Farmers of America:
“Is a matter of inches (of increased topsoil) something to write the New York Times about? In this case, yes its, because the difference between this and this (pointing to topsoil boundary lines) is the difference between runaway climate change and water shortages, and flooding, and droughts, and wildfires, and bad crop production years because it didn’t rain for a month. The difference between this and this (again pointing to topsoil boundary lines) is the buffer that shaves all that danger off…We’ve seen it happen in a single year, eight inches of conversion of this mineral, to this darker, aerobic, root filled, topsoil.”
Seth Itzkan
CEO, Planet-TECH Associates
240B Elm Street, Suite B1
Somerville, MA 02144
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