Page 62 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 22

Food Health

The result is a catastrophic loss of
soil organic matter-- the building
block of healthy soils. Over half
of the soil organic matter in the
world’s agricultural soils has al-
ready been lost, with over 2 billion
hectares of farmland badly affected.
[1]It translates into declining crop
yields, increasing pollution of water
systems from fertilizer run-off, and
because soil organic matter is mainly
composed of carbon, the release of
enormous amounts of carbon into
the atmosphere.

Yet, the main culprits behind this
soil catastrophe are now recasting a lot of money that’s potentially out into their soils. These are generally
themselves as soil saviors. The there to be made. Enough to attract limited to planting cover crops and
world’s top fertiliser company, Yara, the most notorious soil miners. doing less or no-tillage but can also
recently created an alliance to pursue include integrating trees or applying
“a new solution to our carbon chal- If this “win-win” sounds too good fertilizers more efficiently.
lenge that’s grounded in the soil”. to be true, that’s because it is. Yes, as
Global commodity trader Cargill is La Via Campesina and many other Farmers log their practices onto cor-
rolling out several new initiatives organisations have long argued, we porate digital platforms, but satellite
to support what it calls “regener- need to build carbon back into the or aeroplane surveillance monitor
ative agriculture”. “Soil health is a soils to address the climate crisis. their farms. Some programmes
win-win,” says Cargill. Over the past But this requires a vast programme require farmers to submit soil sam-
couple of years, nearly all of the of agroecology, land redistribution ples; others rely entirely on remote
biggest corporate players in agri- and the re-localisation of food verification systems. Farmers gener-
business have launched or joined systems. And it certainly cannot be ally have to maintain these practices
initiatives to restore carbon in agri- done at the cost of enabling more and are responsible for keeping the
cultural soils (see Table 1). fossil fuel emissions. The carbon carbon sequestered in their soils for
farming programmes that corpora- between 5-10 years to fulfil their
The reason is simple; there is now tions are hastily pushing are fraught contract. However, timelines can
money to be made from storing with problems. They amount to a extend to 20 or 25 years.
carbon in the ground. Governments big soil grab. These programmes are
and corporations are desperate to designed to greenwash pollution and Farmers are then paid based on
find ways to avoid making real cuts consolidate control over food and the calculated amount of carbon
to their fossil fuel emissions and are agriculture in the hands of a small sequestered and the prevailing price
willing to pay others to sequester number of corporations, whose for carbon in global carbon credit
carbon so they can continue burning activities are increasingly integrated markets. Typically 20-25% is de-
fossil fuels. The challenge is to find through digital platforms. ducted to account for future losses
places to sequester this carbon-- and of carbon that could occur after
what better place than in the world’s The ABCs of carbon credit the programme ends or because of
carbon-depleted farmlands? Some farming calamities like droughts and fires.
estimate the capacity to sequester The company typically takes another
up to 3.4 Gt of carbon per year in The typical soil carbon farming 25% as fees.
agricultural lands-- which is roughly programme looks like this.
one-third of the annual emissions There are a growing number of
from the fossil fuel and cement sec- Farmers sign up for the programme these carbon credit farming pro-
tors. With a price of about USD$20 online. They then have to start im- grammes out there, most of them
per tonne of carbon sequestered on plementing certain farming practices led by or connected to a multina-
today’s carbon credit markets, that’s that are supposed to draw carbon tional agribusiness corporation.

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