{"id":4757,"date":"2009-07-30T12:48:47","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T18:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4757"},"modified":"2009-07-30T12:48:47","modified_gmt":"2009-07-30T18:48:47","slug":"putting-the-carbon-footprint-of-farming-in-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/putting-the-carbon-footprint-of-farming-in-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting The &#8220;Carbon Footprint&#8221; of Farming in Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/07\/ntcorn3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4758\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/07\/ntcorn3.jpg\" alt=\"no-till corn\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>[social_buttons]<\/p>\n<p>When thinking about &#8220;<a title=\"Carbon footprint blog\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2009\/05\/28\/global-warming-solutions-urban-living\/\" target=\"_blank\">carbon footprints<\/a>&#8221; it helps to have real numbers to put things in perspective. The EPA estimates that for the US, agriculture represents about 8% of total human-related greenhouse gas emissions. The following is a list with a little of the detail of what makes up the footprint of an acre of a rain-fed Midwestern <a title=\"Corn blog\" href=\"http:\/\/gas2.org\/2009\/07\/28\/grow-corn-to-power-biomass-power-plant-to-power-evs-not-ethanol\/\" target=\"_blank\">corn<\/a> crop with a few other things thrown in for comparison. Since we grow 80-90 million acres of corn its something that matters. The values are all expressed as pounds of CO2 equivalents. If you want Carbon equivalents multiply by 12\/44<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Some &#8220;Carbon Footprints&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <a title=\"Embedded carbon link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/opinion\/commentators\/michael-mccarthy-lowcarbon-consumerism--a-new-ethical-choice-427665.html\" target=\"_blank\">embedded carbon<\/a> in the seed treatment chemicals that help get the corn growing strong &#8211; 0.56<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Embedded carbon in a fungicide spray\u00a0 &#8211; 2.7<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The gas to drive 2 miles each way to the grocery store for a car that gets 20 mpg &#8211; 3.9<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Running a 2-stroke lawn mower for an hour &#8211; 6.1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel to drive a sprayer over an acre to make a pesticide application &#8211; 7.3<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel to drive the <a title=\"No-till blog\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2009\/07\/28\/50-years-of-truely-sustainable-agriculture-to-be-celebrated-next-year\/\" target=\"_blank\">no-till<\/a> planter in the spring &#8211; 31<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>All the embedded carbon for a pest control program on the acre that would really optimize corn yield &#8211; 52<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel to run the combine over the acre at harvest &#8211; 59<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel for all the farming operations on that acre if it is no-till &#8211; 169<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel for all the farming operations if it is conventional till &#8211; 231<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Embedded carbon in a synthetic fertilizer program (120 lbs N, 40 lbs P, 35 lbs K) &#8211; 502<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Nitrous oxide emissions if 1.5% of the applied nitrogen gets converted to that gas (fairly typical range) &#8211; 823<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fuel to harvest a processing tomato crop (for a vegetable crop comparison) &#8211; 1,348<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The total carbon footprint of an acre of no-till corn not counting carbon sequestration &#8211; 1,829<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Methane emissions from stored manure for 120 lbs of N (1.5% conversion) for an acre of Organic corn &#8211; 1,936<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>All the fuel to grow an acre of the processing tomato crop &#8211; 3,627<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Methane, <a title=\"background blog\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2009\/05\/18\/prevention-of-global-warming-understanding-the-main-causes\/\" target=\"_blank\">nitrous oxide<\/a> and fuel emissions for an acre of Organic corn getting 120 lbs of N supplied with <a title=\"Compost\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/2009\/07\/27\/an-inconvenient-truth-about-composting\/\" target=\"_blank\">composted cow manure <\/a>&#8211; 7,682<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The EPA estimated average annual household carbon footprint &#8211; 22,880<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the acre of no-till corn was also &#8220;cover-cropped&#8221; on the order of 1,100 lbs of carbon dioxide could have been removed from the atmosphere. This sort of corn might produce 225 bushels\/acre so the carbon footprint if farmed with conventional tillage comes out to 0.15 lbs CO2\/lb corn. In the no-till with cover crop scenario that is dropped to 0.059 lbs CO2\/lb corn. If this isn&#8217;t something you&#8217;ve seen before I would be interested to know what did or didn&#8217;t fit your expectations about the relative &#8220;footprint&#8221; of different farming elements.<\/p>\n<p>Cornfield Photo by 1 Riverrat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[social_buttons] When thinking about &#8220;carbon footprints&#8221; it helps to have real numbers to put things in perspective. The EPA estimates that for the US, agriculture represents about 8% of total&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":4758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[18,133,626,584,215,3362,3694,20],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Putting The &quot;Carbon Footprint&quot; of Farming in Perspective &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/putting-the-carbon-footprint-of-farming-in-perspective\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Putting The &quot;Carbon Footprint&quot; of Farming in Perspective &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[social_buttons] When thinking about &#8220;carbon footprints&#8221; it helps to have real numbers to put things in perspective. 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