Recent developments in having soils accepted as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plans are generally positive.
There has been a lot of activity south of the border. At a conference near Washington, D.C., it was apparent the US Administration is very favorably disposed to agricultural soils playing a role in the US response to Kyoto. Americans signed the Kyoto Protocol at the Buenos Aires round of negotiations. This agreement must be ratified before it becomes official. My understanding is that the next US Presidential campaign may well have a strong environmental component. Democrats favoring ratification, Republicans opposed. It would appear that the prolonged impeachment process in the senate is favoring the Democratic side and Clinton, which might favor soils. The Congress, Senate, US Administration and World Bank officials as well as scientists were in attendance. Mike Dyck from MANDAK Zero Till Association and myself were the only farmers in the crowd. We made a presentation that stressed farmers are indispensable if the full contribution of soils as a biological scrubber is to be achieved. We were very well received and our message was accepted.
Since that time the USDA (US Dept of Agriculture) called a meeting of it's research scientists to be sure the policies being developed would have a sound science base.
Weeks later I spoke to a farm organization that was considering a carbon trade and they were quietly lobbying to have Agricultural sinks included in national policy and all carbon sequestered since 1990 to have same value. A representative from the US Treasury Department suggested that early US policy would be based on the Credit for Early Action Provisions.
At the Buenos Aires round the text in section 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol was changed from "Land Use Change and Forests" to "Land Use, Land Use Change and Forest" to be included as sinks. Some legal minds suggested that the original "Land Use Change" referred to changing some land use to forestry. With the change in text it should make it easier to include agricultural soils as sinks. Canada's negotiating team who at one time were the only ones pushing for agricultural soils have gained international support from Japan, Australia, New Zealand plus many other smaller players. When (rather than if in my judgement) the Americans come solidly on side, soils will probably have a bright future as sinks. There appears to be some cracks in the European opposition so soils as sinks are on a much sounder footing than at last report.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on sinks has chosen several members with Henry Janzen, Agriculture and Agri Food Canada (AAFC) being one of the authors. This special science report is due to be finished by the fall of 1999. Some of the authors I've heard mentioned have played positive roles at the Soil Water and Conservation Society (SWCS) meeting in Calgary last May and at the "Carbon Sequestration in Soils: Science Monitoring and Beyond", meeting in Washington, DC, December, 1998.
The Canadian Sinks Table has released its Foundation Paper and it should be on the Internet. If you are interested you could call the SSCA office (306-695-4233) and get the Website or even ask for the pertinent sections to be mailed to you.
The Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association (SSCA) has put in a lot of effort to stay on top of this issue.
We worked with the Soil Conservation Council of Canada (SCCC) to discuss the implication of Carbon Trading and Sequestration issues. This workshop was attended by farmers from across Canada and resulted in a Discussion Paper. If you are part of a market or production club or just interested, contact our office and get a copy of the Paper.
It must be remembered that we use fossil fuels on our farm operation so we are a source of Greenhouse Gasses. Properly managed soils can more than offset our emission since it allows soils to be a sink.
Like it or not our Greenhouse Gas Management will likely impact the success at our farms. We must work to see that policies will be favorable to our farms.