August 11, 2012

LETTER OF THE WEEK: Organic farms cut carbon dioxide emissions

Morning Sentinel Staff

Richard Thomas' letter (July 23), "Drastic measures needed to stop climate change," pointed out some changes needed to prevent climate change to be too extreme. There is one area climate change groups never talk about.

If only 10,000 medium-size farms in the U.S, converted to organic farming, they would store so much carbon dioxide in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking more than 1 million cars off the road or reducing our miles driven by 14.62 billion miles.

Converting 160 million corn and soybean acres in the U.S. to organic production would satisfy 73 percent of the Kyoto target for carbon dioxide reduction in the USA.

U.S. agriculture emits a total of 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air annually. If American farms were to go organic it would wipe out agriculture's massive emission problem by eliminating energy-costing chemicals, pesticides, fungicides, etc., and genetically altered seeds, which prevent carbon dioxide absorption.

If American farms were converted to organic farms, it would actually give us a net increase in soil carbon of 734 billion pounds out of the air and would prove very beneficial in combating climate change.

If all administrations, federal, state and local, were really serious about combating climate change, they would back organic farming 100 percent and encourage more farms to go organic.

Marcel LeRoi, Belgrade

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