CROP’S COST

Beneath the topsoil

Your average carrot or head of cabbage probably isn’t the first thing you think of when you think about climate change, is it? Or even when focusing about food production and climate change. But just growing crops does in fact contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Though not as intensive as livestock emissions, considering the amount of vegetables, fruits, and grains we consume daily along with the amount of resources and land needed to grow such a large quantity of crops, then maybe then it isn’t so hard to picture. FERTILIZER is a main contributor to emissions related to crop growth. Most conventional crop production utilizes Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers which is produced from fossil fuels (FoodPrint) and with the increase of demand for such fertilizers, there is also an increase in atmospheric nitrous oxide, “Methane is being covered a greenhouse gas produced from the transformation more and more heavily. It’s of nitrogen in soil with 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (Shankman) and made up time for nitrous oxide to be 7% of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 (Overview covered more too” of Greenhouse Gases). Another popular type of fertilizer also full of nitrogen is manure. Of course, - Ron Dobosy, a researcher who plants need nitrogen to grow, but if there is an excess found not just methane in the Arctics amount of nitrogen, that’s where things get a it permafrost, but also nitrous oxide worrying. You see, when maure doesn’t get enough (Shankman) oxygen, that’s when it starts turning into atmospheric nitrous oxide. So when farmers add more manure than they need, maure tends to get pack in, therefore leaving less air for them to breathe making the perfect environment for them turn into N2O, nitrous oxide. And that’s just part of it, not to mention manure’s contribution with methane, but we’ll get to that once we look at livestock.

DEFORESTATION is happening a lot more now for agricultural reasons. It’s been roughly estimated that 75% of global deforestation is for agricultural reasons (FoodPrint). Of course, plants, especially trees, are known to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, so the less trees, the more carbon is in the air and therefore not only warming the planet but reducing air quality. Then there are the ways how they are deforested. Some burn down the trees, releasing even more emissions into the air. Trees and forests are a crucial part of the environment, being homes to millions of species and such. When one is removed, a whole ecosystem goes with it. This is one of the most difficult challenges with reducing emissions from agriculture. We have to find ways to produce enough food for growing demand with growing populations but we also have to stop or at least slow down expanding crop land. We can not continue stripping the world of our natural fighters in this war against climate change. The obvious answer would be to just continue growing our crops in the same places, and that’s right, that’s what almost everyone is doing. But as some crop land changes, such as infertile soil, new pests, change in weather conditions, natural -disasters, and the like, farmers have reason to try and find new land. This is the struggle. The continuing loop of morals, needs, wants, profit, and so on. We are the ones having a fight with ourselves, and climate change is just watching and waiting to strike.

Putting it into perspective, it’s estimated that by 2030, the area rice is grown on is to increase by 4.5%. Rice is known to be a fairly hefty methane emitting crop as it utilizes a lot of manure, but you’d kind of expect that methane emissions would also be estimated to increase 4.5% as well, proportional to rice area. Contrary to expectations, (but also not exactly a surprise considering all the “surprises” here,) it is estimated that methane emissions from rice will increase by 10%-15% (Smith). This is what the combination of methane/manure and land loss can do.