A newly-established research centre at Massey University, funded by the NZ government, will spend the next three to four years exploring the feasibility of using biochar technology to help reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.

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Iceland wants wetland restoration to be assessed for emission reduction units at the summit to work out a new deal on climate change in December in Copenhagen.
More carbon dioxide is released when wetlands are disturbed or destroyed than when forests are cut down. This is especially the case with peatlands, which contain dead organic matter (peat) with a carbon content of over 50 percent. These form under wet conditions where lack of oxygen hinders decomposition; wet conditions therefore limit the release of carbon dioxide.

There is a new focus on peatlands in climate change negotiations because of their high carbon content, which is released into the atmosphere when peatlands are damaged or drained. This is the rationale for including wetland and peatland restoration as a means of securing credits by Annex-1 countries in the new commitment period due from 2012 following the Kyoto Protocol.

A ‘global assessment on peatlands, diversity and climate change’ produced last year by the international non-governmental groups Wetlands International and the Global Environment Centre showed that carbon dioxide emissions from drained and damaged peatlands amount to more than 3,000 million tonnes annually, or over 11 percent of global fossil fuel emissions.

Rewetting peatlands can lead to an increase in methane emissions, but this is nearly always counterbalanced by a much larger decrease in carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (N20) emissions. Besides carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are the two other greenhouse gases known to cause global warming.

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This latest article covers the developments made by the biochar company Carbon Gold.

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The Danish organisation of min-till farmers was founded 2000, and from a base of 80 farmers they now have 250 members. Some are specialists in min till as they have more than 10 years experience with the system. This is a big attraction to new members as the old hands can advise novices on the pitfalls of the system. The level of support that min-till farmers in Denmark enjoy is enviable.

As an organisation they are looking at further improvements to the system and they see the use of GPS, which will facilitate the use of the same tramlines in fields each year, as the next big advance in this cultivation system. They have found from research that by using the same tramlines they can minimise compaction and hence make cultivation more efficient. Yields are increased as a consequence. The soil structure under min till was found to be in excellent order, with no signs of compaction and a lovely crumb feel to the ground.

The Danish min-till farmers also use a second or after crops, such as mustard to improve soil structure and because erosion is a big worry in Denmark.  70-100kg of soil N is trapped by the green crop, of which 50pc was available to the wheat crop,  making it possible to get close to the optimum N allowance. The Danish government calculates the optimum N level for maximum yield and then allow the farmers to use 80pc of this total. The farmers have become more efficient in their N usage as a consequence of tighter regulations.

The green crop was sown after harvest by an auto-cast system mounted on the cultivator. At a rate of 8kg/ha and a cost of €8/kg, this equated to a cost of €25/ac to achieve 30-40units of N/ac. This is not cheap, but when you take into account the restrictions on fertiliser and the added soil benefits it is an interesting practice.

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Click here to view the video that pitches biochar as a climate change solution.

Click here to listen to Black Gold: the new hope for the environment Morning Ireland 05/05/09

Organic matter in soil have several important functions. It acts as a resevoir of nutrients and water, provides structure, prevents erosion and binds up carbon. Cultivation increases the rate of decomposition of organic matter, inturn releasing CO2 to the atomosphere. Organic matter levels are most likely to decrease under continuous arable cropping where there is little return of plant residues or animal manures. Using a hurling example one hectare of a Tipperary grassland soil contains the equivalent of about 6,000 Galway hurlers in SOM terms (each weighing ~85 Kg).  However continuous cultivation over 30 years could half this team to just 3,000 SOM hurlers.

Peatmoss has been the mainstay of horticulture, amateur and professional, over much of the developed world. It is said that a single cubic metre of extracted peat will eventually release some 50kg of carbon dioxide; this is only a latter-day calculation, to be set beside concern for peatland’s special wildlife and ecosystems.

Sphagnum peat is still a main ingredient in the two-million cubic metres of growing media that Bord na Móna sells annually, mostly to the UK and Western Europe, in the Shamrock-branded products taken over a decade ago by the US multi-national Scott Company. Yet, as part of its “New Contract with Nature”, announced as policy last year, Bord na Móna has joined the Growing Media Initiative, so vigorously promoted by the UK’s Horticultural Trade Association, with government support, and backed by big national DIY stores such as B Q. Bord na Móna’s membership of the GMI commits it to “working towards 90 per cent peat reduction in the UK horticulture retail market”, as urged by Britain’s Biodiversity Action Plan.

Indeed, it hopes to reach 60 per cent reduction in the UK retail compost bags by the end of the year.

It will not be cutting into any new bogs. It has been conserving and restoring for nature some of those still untouched, and helping to create wilderness areas in its oldest cutaways. While diversifying now into other energy initiatives, such as growing algae for biofuel, it is shaving away the last of its great midland peat-plains. Bord na Mona’s waste composting centre at Kilberry, near Monasterevan in Co Kildare, is the largest of its kind in Ireland. Here, it takes in huge quantities of redundant shrubbery, brown wheely-bin waste, spent brewery barley, sawdust, discarded supermarket fruit and veg, and so on– all great organic stuff – much of it for the Shamrock peat-free sowing and potting compost.

Bord na Móna may have erased a great share of Ireland’s raised bogs, but its New Contract with Nature and new R D initiatives seems a promising national example of treating all manner of waste as a resource.

Friends of the Irish Environment claim that peat extraction allegedly for export to countries where extraction is illegal and “on a huge scale, with no planning permission or environmental impact assessment”. These times could again be hard on nature, with any sort of enterprise, income or cheap fuel supply being seen as having prior claim.

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A global farm policy think tank has recommended that agriculture should form part of the international negotiations on climate change in the forthcoming apex conference of parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Copenhagen in December 2009.

A policy brief issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has pointed out that with suitable technology and management, agriculture, which now contributes about 15 per cent to green house gas (GHG) emissions, can actually become an important sink for emissions even from other sectors.

Besides, agriculture will be adversely affected by the climate change and millions of poor farmers will need help in adapting to the weather patterns. The mechanism for funding research on climate adaptation and mitigation by the agriculture sector needs to be discussed at the UNFCCC meet at Copenhagen.

Apart from agriculture’s direct contribution of 15 per cent to the GHG emissions, land-use related changes, including forest loss, account for additional 19 per cent to harmful emissions.
While reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation has been formally included in the current negotiations on climate change, agriculture as such has been left out. This should now be put on the agenda for the Copenhagen meet, the IFPRI has asserted.

It has suggested that the negotiations at the UNFCCC must go beyond the traditional schemes developed under the Kyoto protocol and should encourage funding for climate change mitigation in the agricultural sector.

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