There’s a lot farmers can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.
Researchers at Rutgers looked into what can be done. Marjorie Kaplan runs the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center there.
“This study was to look at what the landscape is for how farmers can take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it in soil and plants,” said Kaplan, one of the authors.
The report identified a number of practices farmers can undertake to put more carbon back into the soil.
Stephanie Murphy also wrote the study, and is director of Rutgers Soil Testing Lab.
“Over a long period of time, through agricultural and other management of the landscape, we have degraded the soils and drawn down their organic matter content,” she said, “and that now gives us the opportunity to put organic matter back into the soil.”
Healthier soil means healthier crops. “Farming is important to our economy in New Jersey,” said Kaplan. “It’s over a billion dollars in sales every year.”
She noted that the state is one of the Top 5 producers in the US of cranberries, blueberries, peaches and tomatoes, among other crops.
A bill to promote healthy soil in New Jersey is now working its way through the state legislature.