{"id":5883,"date":"2019-10-14T09:05:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T06:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5883"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","slug":"crop-leftovers-can-store-huge-amounts-of-carbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/14\/crop-leftovers-can-store-huge-amounts-of-carbon\/","title":{"rendered":"Crop Leftovers Can Store Huge Amounts of Carbon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Dries\nRoobroeck<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Farmers in countries like Uganda could help fight climate\nchange \u2013 and improve their crop yields \u2013 by adding agricultural waste to their\nfields. The process removes carbon from the atmosphere and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.4p1000.org\/\">stores it in the soil<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a strategy proposed under the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/unfccc.int\/process-and-meetings\/the-paris-agreement\/what-is-the-paris-agreement\">United\nNations Framework Convention on Climate Change<\/a>&nbsp;and shown to have\nstrong potential, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in recent&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/eap.1984\">research<\/a>&nbsp;done\nby myself and colleagues from Makerere University in Uganda and the University\nof Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Soils can absorb carbon dioxide from the air through a\nprocess called carbon sequestration. This is when more carbon is added to the\nsoil than it loses. Carbon dioxide is lost from soils to the atmosphere when\nplant material, manure and other organic matter decomposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Biochar \u2013 plant matter that\u2019s been burned using only a\nlittle oxygen \u2013 is an excellent way to add carbon to soil. Many of the world\u2019s\nsoils already hold charred organic matter which originates from natural and\nhuman-made vegetation fires. Biochar is good at storing carbon in soils because\nits natural breakdown happens&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/gcbb.12266\">very\nslowly<\/a>, unlike raw residues or manure. This means it can remove carbon from\nthe atmosphere over a long period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A number of carbon sequestration projects using biochar are\nalready taking place in North and South America, Asia and Europe. For instance\nby 2020, using biochar from the natural waste of home gardens and public\nparks,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/goexplorer.org\/stockholm-worlds-first-urban-carbon-sink-with-biochar\/\">Sweden\u2019s\ncapital city<\/a>&nbsp;will remove as much carbon dioxide as 3,500 cars emit in\na year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/crop-leftovers-can-store-huge-amounts-of-carbon-insights-from-uganda-124322\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dries Roobroeck Farmers in countries like Uganda could help fight climate change \u2013 and improve their crop yields \u2013 by adding agricultural waste to their fields. The process removes&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}