This is KPBS Midday Edition. I am Michael Lipkin. California lawmakers are asking farmers for help. The $7.5 million healthy soil program will pay farmers up to $50,000 if they change practices to keep more carbon in the soil. It could move carbon dioxide. Joining me is Puja Batra. She is working with the San Diego County to develop a carbon farming plan. Thank you for joining us.Thank you for having.What does it mean to put carbon in the soil?There are a series of practices that we call carbon farmer -- farming that help to build healthy soils and add carbon to the soil and lockdown the carpet that is in there and prevent it from being released in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. These are practices many of which are known to farmers, things like composting or mulching, reduced telling, and then planting perennial vegetation like perennial grasses, shrubs in the form of hedgerows or trees that might be planted to restore or repairing the area. Those things help to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil. That is, lock it into the soil and into the vegetation and keep it there for several decades.Is this something farmers would be able to take advantage of in places like the Central Valley? They grow annual plans but then we have plans like citrus trees where they do not till the soil and nurseries use artificial soil in pots. There is no telling there.That is right. Absolutely. These are practices that can be implemented in San Diego County and many of our agriculture context. We have almost 200,000 acres of range lands. Those are an irrigated, unmanaged, open space that is used for cattle grazing. There are farming practices that can be applied to those lands. In our orchard crops, as well as the row crops and the nursery crops, there are a number of practices that can help us build healthy soils while also reaching the climate targets.There is 200,000 acres of rangeland in San Diego County. It seems like the practice would be to add compost to the rangeland. Has that been studied before? What have the results been ?That is one of the practices that is attracting a lot of attention because the state has so many -- such a large acreage. There is studies and ongoing studies for the past decade that shows really remarkable rates of carbon sequestration when you apply just a small layer, a half inch layer of compost and then after that, it is business as usual. There is no change in grazing management practices. For example, in our county, we have close to 2000 acres of rangeland. When you add a light application of compost, it results in close to 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in a year. Let me put that number in perspective. 900,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide is over one quarter of the entire carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emission footprint for San Diego unincorporated County.You are working with the county, the food system alliance and others to work on a countywide carbon farming plan. What does that mean ?This is working on various aspects of building a healthy and equitable local food system. It starts with healthy soils. We are working with the county to develop essentially a roadmap of how can the county really take advantage of this great potential that we have enough farms and ranches of our county to help us build that healthy soil base as well as reach the climate targets? We are asking, where are the ways the county can help facilitate the implementation of the carbon farming practices. Can they do things to scale up the practices by helping farmers and ranchers with some of the barriers that they face and some of the difficulties that they face ?Not just statewide financing but maybe County-based incentives ?Some kind of county-based incentive, that is rightBesides taking carbon dioxide out of the benefits -- carbon dioxide out of the Eric one of the benefits are there ?That is extremely valuable in helping us build healthy -- healthy soils and reduce the causes of climate change but it is also going to help us to develop climate resilience. By that, I mean, it will help us reduce the risks that we are facing and we will continue to face as a result of climate changes that we see in our region. For example, I mentioned the co-post compost application, that application, we have seen in San Eagle County has doubled the growth rate of the plans of the 4-H that is grazed on by the cattle. It doubles the rate of group growth. It is good for the rancher. It is shown in northern California to increase the soil water holding capacity by 25%. That means that that rangeland is going to be more drought resistant than a rangeland without the compost. That will help us reduce our risk of wildfires and it is going to help us with some of the storm water runoff problems that we already face and we continue to face because soils that require more water will prevent that water and the nutrients from entering our streams and into the bay. Carbon farming has multiple benefits. That is the beauty of finding a way to implement them in our county.I've been speaking with Puja Batra . Thank you.
California lawmakers are enlisting farmers’ help in pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it in their soil.
California’s $7.5 million Healthy Soils initiative will pay farmers up to $50,000 if they adopt "carbon farming" practices, including applying compost on rangeland to increase carbon retention capacity. State officials say it could remove the equivalent of millions of tons of carbon dioxide a year.
San Diego County Farm Bureau executive director Eric Larson said the impact will likely be greater in regions like the Central Valley, because many of the practices involve reducing crop tilling, which releases some of the soil's carbon. San Diego farms grow a lot of permanent crops, like citrus trees, that do not get tilled and the region's large nursery industry primarily uses soil in pots, he said.
But San Diego farmers with rangeland could be key to the state's goals. Organic farmers have been using compost on their land for decades, but research in Marin County found that applying a half-inch of compost on rangelands used by grazing livestock boosted that soil's carbon for at least eight years. That's the equivalent of nine metric tons of carbon dioxide per acre, according to Batra Ecological Strategies founder Puja Batra.
"We have over 200,000 acres of rangelands," Batra said. "Only some of that could actually use composting because some has steep slopes, but the potential is so great. And it’s just a one-time application and then it’s grazing as usual."
The California Department of Food and Agriculture will host a webinar Tuesday morning for interested farmers. The application deadline is September 19.
Batra joins KPBS Midday on Monday with more on how San Diego can take advantage of carbon farming.
