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Global Warming Solutions Can Boost Agriculture

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 5, 2007

Agriculture is a global industry in the throes of change. This means challenges, of course. But it also means opportunities - opportunities with potentially very profitable yields.

It is no exaggeration to claim that from the seeds planted in today's crop rows will sprout new paradigms for our national and world economies.

But the next few years are critical. Agriculture, perhaps more than any U.S. industry, is in a position to help shape the climate and energy policies and legislation that will determine to a large extent the workings of the new markets and economy.

Among these opportunities and challenges, the one drawing most attention in Florida today is global climate change. Climate change is exacerbated by the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As this build-up continues, weather patterns become extreme, generating hotter heat waves, colder freezes, stronger hurricanes and intensified crop-destroying droughts.

Exactly how we achieve the goal of reducing these gases is already energizing many forward-thinking and innovative American entrepreneurs who recognize that an economic shift is underway, a shift marked by the abandonment of aging, inefficient equipment and processes and the introduction of new technologies that are cleaner and more energy efficient.

This shift will make us more independent and secure, enhance our self-reliance and create new jobs and wealth.

With bold leadership, Gov. Charlie Crist already has begun pushing and prodding the state economy to awaken to these new possibilities. In July he signed executive orders during a historic summit in Miami that will cap CO2 emissions, a leading greenhouse gas. Florida, along with California and a handful of other states, is suddenly on the leading edge.

Perhaps the most exciting area for agriculture lies in establishing new economic incentives for market-based climate control.

It is now up to Congress to pass climate control legislation to reduce greenhouse gases. The question is whether it will include carbon credit offsets and commodity trading. If it does, then agriculture will have the opportunity to participate in a profitable new market: The selling of carbon credit offsets to businesses that have yet to reduce their emissions.

This system is called "cap and trade."

The first step in a cap and trade system involves government or another authority setting a limit, or cap, on how much pollutant a company (manufacturers, electric utilities and farms, for example) may emit. Credits or allowances are given to each organization corresponding to the specific amount of carbon they may emit. The total credits may not exceed the cap on emissions. A company that pollutes beyond its credit must buy the equivalent additional credits from those who pollute less than their allowance.

A farm, an electric utility or a manufacturing plant that reduces its emission below its allowance is rewarded by the system through the ability to sell, or trade, its excess credits. Because those who can do so will reduce their greenhouse emissions while those who cannot will buy credits, the result is a reduction in greenhouse gasses at the lowest possible cost to society.

Agricultural operations can create such carbon offset credits through capturing methane from manure, directly reducing emissions of farm machinery, reducing fertilizer applications, using low carbon (ethanol, biodiesel) fuel, using no-till and direct seed drilling techniques that do not release as much naturally stored carbon and by planting trees on marginal land.

While an unlimited market would be best, even a limited market allowing for agriculture carbon credits could be worth $8 billion to $10 billion, putting it in one of the top five commodities nationwide.

Unfettered agricultural GHG offset marketing also will stimulate innovation in agriculture and other land-based sectors, bring new methods and technologies to the market, stimulate new rural businesses, create new jobs and stabilize agricultural income.

We know that land-management practices in the United States can clearly meet a potential 20-year targeted cut of approximately 2,300 million metric tons of CO2 per year. The Consortium for Agricultural Soil Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases, a group of nine state universities doing research on agriculture's ability to reduce greenhouse gases, estimates that the agriculture industry alone could provide nearly one-third of the projected reduction in emissions needed by the utility industry.

However, of the many climate bills now being introduced in Congress, few include agricultural carbon markets.

It would be a pity if Florida agriculture missed out on the opportunity to vault to the forefront of coming economic changes. The seeds already planted should be allowed to grow, mature and yield.

Connie Mack is a founder of Liberty Partners Inc. and a former U.S. senator from Florida.

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