Written by Olivia Brown
What if you could fight climate change in your own backyard?
This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most significant warning yet: that the actions of humans have undoubtedly warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land. Not only are we warming the climate, we’re depleting the natural resources we depend on, degrading our planet’s ecosystems, and producing waste at exponential rates. In the face of such unprecedented change, we must take ownership over our impact.
The strategy for transformation
A strategy worth considering begins in our own backyards. It’s called carbon farming––except there is no need to be a farmer, at least not in the traditional sense. All it takes is a bit of compost, a 10x20 ft piece of lawn, and a few hours to spare. The practice of backyard carbon farming is simple: apply compost to your lawn. It’s that easy. However, carbon farming in its simplicity is a powerful act.
The Community Carbon Farming Campaign began in the spring of 2019 when one retired organic farmer sought out to redefine the concept of waste. Inspired by recent research from the Marin Carbon Project, Eco-Cycle’s Compost Department Director, Dan Matsch, recruited 250 volunteer neighborhood carbon farmers to participate in this local climate solution centered around the power of compost and community action.
Matsch had been searching for a way to better communicate the value of utilizing organic waste to make compost for some time. This was a tool so transformative, he thought, that more people than just traditional farmers should know about it, and backyard carbon farming became the missing link. However hopeful Matsch may have been from the onset of this idea, he was blown away by the community response it received.
Eco-Cycle put out an open call for participants in the Community Carbon Farming Campaign and suddenly, hundreds of responses rolled in––so much so they had to cap it until they could manage the logistics. “I felt like we were speaking to people’s frustration that they were powerless to stop climate change,” said Matsch. Carbon farming empowers community members to play an active role in cultivating a more sustainable world. So, what exactly is it?
Carbon farming simply means finding ways to move carbon out of the atmosphere where it acts as a greenhouse gas that warms our climate, and into soils, where it instead acts as a nutrient source. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods, like the application of compost to soil. Although a common misconception, compost is not just dirt or mulch or manure––it is the final product of a very specific, well-managed decomposition process.
The benefits that compost and carbon farming can provide for the environment are numerous, ongoing, and backed by research, and it contributes to a more localized, circular economy by reducing organic waste and subsequent emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly half of the trash in the United States is biodegradable material that could be composted. Carbon farming reduces this waste and thus reduces human-caused methane emissions from food and yard waste decomposing in landfills.
This is especially noteworthy because methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas (GHG)¾more than 25 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at warming the global atmosphere. The United States is the fourth largest emitter of methane in the world and, as a result, we have a large potential to reverse global emissions.
Not only does compost divert waste and prevent greenhouse gas emissions, but it also sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, builds healthy soils, conserves water, and prevents soil erosion––all critical factors in strengthening our response to a changing climate.
Diverting waste and building a circular economy
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food waste within the United States is estimated at between 30 to 40 percent of the national food supply. In 2010, retail and consumer food loss hit 31 percent, equating to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food wasted. Wasted or lost food generally means available food that goes uneaten, and its implications are significant.
In 2010, the United States alone reported more than 38 million food insecure individuals, or people who had a lack of consistent access to enough food to live an active, healthy life. In 2012, the amount of food wasted in the United States could have provided 84 percent of the country’s adult population with 2,000 calories per day of nourishment. Not only is food waste a glaring issue in the face of so many going hungry, but it also represents wasted land, labor, water, energy, money, and other inputs necessary throughout producing, processing, transporting, preparing, storing, and disposing of discarded food.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, this discarded food is the single largest form of waste filling up municipal landfills. This is a serious issue because food that decomposes in landfills does so in an uncontrolled anaerobic manner––decomposition in the absence of oxygen––which causes the release of the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. As a result, municipal solid waste landfills equate to the third-largest source of annual human-related methane emissions in the United States. Put simply, the food we throw out is warming our planet.
But it doesn’t have to be that way: the same food contributing to climate change could instead be utilized to reverse climate change. When food decomposes in a controlled manner, through composting, it undergoes an aerobic process (with the presence of oxygen), which prevents the release of methane. Food that would have been wasted and contributed to global greenhouse gas emissions is instead diverted and created into a resource: compost.
In this way, compost cultivates a circular economy, named after the closed loop system you can imagine from continuous resource reuse and waste minimization. However, only around six percent of annual food waste is diverted from landfills for composting. We have a climate solution at our fingertips, and we need to start using it––carbon farming is how we can do it.
Reducing emissions, sequestering carbon, and increasing soil health
Not only does carbon farming divert food waste from landfills and reduce methane emissions, it also pulls down carbon dioxide––another prominent greenhouse gas warming our climate––out of the atmosphere and stores it safely in the soil. This process is called carbon sequestration. Soil’s ability to store carbon is three times more than that of plants or our atmosphere. Carbon sequestration is good for the climate and good for the soil, as carbon increases overall soil health.
When compost is applied to lawns, it increases the health of the soil by enriching it with nutrients and soil biota (the microorganisms, animals, and plants that contribute to the soil ecosystem), balancing its pH, and contributing to the diversity of the soil microbiome. As a result, healthy soil means a healthy home for soil microorganisms––the tiny worker bees that sequester carbon in the soil through photosynthesis. Healthy soil also means healthier plant growth and the suppression of weeds and plant diseases, which then results in healthier, more nutrient-rich foods without the use of fertilizers or pesticides.
Compost also increases the soil’s water holding capacity, as compost can efficiently absorb water and simultaneously prevent run-off and flooding. In effect, compost conserves water, which means any grasses or plants that grow in it are more drought resistant and resilient to climate change.
As compost better equips soil to absorb and transfer water, it also allows the soil to bind together more and create a less favorable environment for erosion to take place. This is incredibly important because soil is a non-renewable natural resource, meaning that, if lost, it cannot be replaced during a human’s lifespan.
In fact, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), just 2 to 3 centimeters of soil takes up to 1,000 years to build. The FAO also notes that “33 percent of the Earth’s soils are already degraded and over 90 percent could become degraded by 2050.” The simple act of applying compost to soils provides numerous benefits for the health of the planet, as well as for carbon farmers themselves.
Backyard carbon farming
Along with carbon farming’s clear benefits, it’s easy to do. Eco-Cycle’s Community Carbon Farming Campaign is a quick and straightforward training and set-up process with very low maintenance. To begin, there are six instructional videos, and participants spend fewer than three hours from start to finish––time that can easily be split up if needed.
Compost will not only contribute to a healthier planet, but also benefits participants themselves by producing greener, healthier, faster growing lawns and plants with less need for water. You don’t even have to own a farm to reap these benefits, all it takes is a 10x20 ft piece of lawn. Step one: apply compost to half of the plot. Step two: take soil samples. Step three: wait. The idea here is to act as a citizen scientist: a member of the general community helping to scale carbon sequestration.
Carbon farming on yards is a new concept that calls for further research, and when community members participate in this project, they contribute to the research being developed around it. Participants in Eco-Cycle’s Community Carbon Farming Campaign are asked to take soil samples and send them into a lab before they apply compost so that the base level of carbon in their soil can be measured. That’s it. For a year. After which, participants take a new soil sample to track how carbon farming has changed their soil over time. Ideally, this process continues annually for as long as possible to keep track of how effectively the soil has sequestered carbon.
Carbon farming is an easy-to-maintain but long-term, ongoing practice. There is no need for a huge yard to make a difference. In fact, if you don’t have a 10x20 ft lawn with a test and control plot, no worries, and if you don’t want to take lab samples annually, no worries. Do it every three years, or even every five. The main objective here is to get the community engaged around and taking part in an accessible local climate solution, and any efforts help.
Too many headlines focus on all the ways in which humans are degrading the planet and how climate change is imminent, rather than highlighting how communities have the capacity to shift the trajectory of our changing climate. There is no silver bullet in the fight against climate change, but there is the power of collective action. Carbon farming proves transformation is possible, and beyond that, it’s easy.
Imagine a world in which everyone––I mean everyone––knew how to best manage their lawn for environmental well-being. One person might not be able to sequester enough carbon in their own backyard to save the world, but when multiplied across neighborhoods, towns, cities, and countries, the impact grows exponentially larger.