Key Points
In the US, about 10 percent of greenhouse gases come from livestock or cropsand for a long time, agriculture has lagged behind other sectors when it comes to cutting its carbon footprint..
Since 1990, total emissions from agriculture have risen by 7 percent, while emissions from sectors like electricity generation and buildings have declined...
A much higher number of projects focus on cover croppinga technique that involves covering fields with crops between harvests in order to slow soil erosion, capture carbon, and keep nutrients in the fields..
A different review, this time examining cover cropping on US farms, found that, in lots of cases, fields with cover crops didnt gain extra soil carbon when compared to fields that hadnt been cover cropped..
If money for cover crops runs out, farmers may start leaving fields bare during off-seasons and plowing them more, which would mean a lot of that sequestered carbon would end up back in the atmosphere..
