The Hindu Business Line : `Farmers may benefit by trading in carbon'

RESEARCH economists say electrical power plants and other manufacturing agencies could some day seek the aid of farmers, offering contracts to help industrial firms reduce carbon emissions.

For farmers, such agreements could create an additional source of income and make carbon a traded commodity, according to researchers, Dr Bruce McCarl and Dr Tanveer Butt, based in the US.

They said global warming is partially due to an increase in greenhouse gases, and is released primarily by power plants, automobiles, manufacturing companies and tropical deforestation.

Carbon dioxide is the most dominant greenhouse gas. Since crops and trees process carbon dioxide and return it into the soil in the form of carbon, land used for agriculture could play an important role in carbon sequestration.

Land management practices, such as tree production, the planting of grasses on rangeland, and conservation tillage, are a few methods that would help reduce levels of carbon dioxide.

Plants can take carbon from the air and put it back into the soil, and this could be a cheaper alternative than causing cutbacks or technology change in the energy or manufacturing industries, the researchers said.

Agriculture could play a key role in carbon reduction when industry, such as power plants, might face greenhouse gas emission limits and look for ways to offset levels that are above the limits.