What Should Farmers Know About Climate Change? Livestock & Carbon Sequestration

By Jonathan Reinbold

Here’s an interesting paradox: livestock is both a major contributor to and a solution for excess carbon in the atmosphere, which is intensifying climate change. The most conservative estimates suggest that raising livestock accounts for nearly 15% of global greenhouse gases emitted each year; the most comprehensive assessments of emissions say more than 50%. However, when herbivores are removed from the land – whether they are wild or domesticated – the land deteriorates. When grasslands are undergrazed, soil health declines and carbon is lost.

Grasslands occupy 31% to 43% of the global land area, and store 28% to 37% of the terrestrial soil organic carbon pool. Practices that increase forage production, such as fertilization, irrigation, sowing favorable grasses and forbs, intensive grazing management, and conversion from cultivation to well-managed pasture, provide the opportunity to sequester atmospheric carbon and enhance soil organic matter.
Improved grazing can sequester between one-half to three tons of carbon per acre per year.

Improved grazing management practices in grasslands could sequester about 409 million tonnes of carbon per year, globally. Grazing land and pasture management practices that increase soil carbon stocks can significantly mitigate carbon emissions and may present opportunities for profitable investment in mitigation.