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Center will help cut CO2 emissions from farming

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-02 10:35

New standards and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by farming will be adopted with the launch yesterday in Beijing of the Center for Research on Agriculture and Climate Change.

Jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a US-based nongovernmental organization, the center will publish a Chinese version of the Duke Standard - a US guide to verifiable and measurable methods for reducing, avoiding and storing GHGs produced by agriculture.

The EDF has already run pilot schemes based on the standard in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. These included promoting non-till farming technology, adopting drip irrigation, turning biogas into fuel and planting tamarisk - a shrub that is good at slowing sand movement.

Carbon credits produced by the pilots were sold on the market for voluntary GHG emissions reduction.

The pilot schemes will help prevent estimated emissions of more than 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent over the next five years.

They also provided additional revenue for farmers who were able to sell the carbon credits.

David Yarnold, executive director of the EDF, said the center will teach farmers about GHG reduction technologies, provide local communities with plans on how to mitigate the effects of climate change and provide verification services as credits to be traded on the international market.