. @Charli3Mitchell argues in The @NewRepublic that efforts by companies like Microsoft, Cargill and McDonalds to sequester carbon in farmland are both ineffective AND redirecting public attention from needed farm-system reforms. He's partially right.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158833/agribusiness-farms-microsoft-mcdonalds-carbon-climate-change
Companies are under increasing pressure to fight climate change. Paying farmers to use farm practices - like no-till or cover crops - that are thought to store more carbon is often cheaper than reducing emissions. This incentive leads to some unsupported claims.
Overall, MANY people & companies exaggerate the potential of soil carbon sequestration. @WRIFood highlights how some have claimed that soils can sequester implausible amounts of carbon - more than the world's soils have lost over thousands of years. https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/05/regenerative-agriculture-climate-change
Even the leading expert on sequestration & winner of the World Food Prize, Rattan Lal, says it is possible that the potential of agriculture to sequester carbon has been "oversold" https://civileats.com/2020/07/15/the-world-food-prize-winner-says-soil-should-have-rights/
While the potential is oversold by advocates & companies with skin-in-the-game, farming STILL HAS a lot of potential to draw down carbon and we ought to take full advantage of this! https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c3780907c9327dc2a2e8c64/t/5edf6c3063b8cc74f6f4fff9/1591700528217/Response+to+WRI+-+FINAL.pdf
There's broad consensus that several farming practices, like cover crops, perennial rotations, and planting grass or other vegetation along rivers & streams substantially sequester carbon AND provide other environmental benefits. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.14644
Measuring carbon sequestration IS a challenge, but also one that's largely solved. Hundreds of field studies (with more constantly being conducted) have given scientists reasonable certainty how much large scale programs, like @USDA's, sequester carbon.
REGARDLESS of soil's potential to store carbon, the focus on it serves to get companies & policymakers off the hook for other important impacts: atrocious labor conditions, methane & N2O emissions, water pollution, supporting tropical deforestation, aquifer depletion and more.
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