Ohio farmers had a year for the record books in 2019. By the end of June, only half of the state’s corn and just over 30% of Ohio’s soybeans were planted. Almost half of Ohio’s 88 counties received disaster designation due to rain and flooding.
As we saw last summer, climate change is already impacting our farmers, our food system and our economy. Compared with a generation ago, farmers are experiencing more frequent weather extremes, including intense storms, severe and prolonged droughts, rising temperatures that create new pest and disease pressure and heat waves that threaten workers, crops and livestock.
While farmers are accustomed to adapting to change, today’s weather extremes are unprecedented and rural communities often lack the resources and infrastructure needed to build resilience to this existential threat.
But a little-known key for unlocking carbon-sequestering solutions to climate change lies beneath every Midwestern farm: the soil. By increasing soil organic carbon, farmers can help the climate, grow their bottom lines and develop resilience to the impacts of extreme weather.
Midwestern soils lost a net 3.5 billion tons of carbon between 1850 and 2015. This loss has accelerated with decades of corporate special interest influence on federal farm policy that has ignored life-building soil practices and favored monoculture corn-soybean systems. Helping farmers, who manage one-fifth of U.S. land, reverse this trend, improve soil health and increase soil organic matter on their farms is essential to the future of our food system and our planet.
Using integrated soil health practices like continuous living cover, multispecies cover crops, longer crop rotations with small grains and perennials, agroforestry, no-till, and well-managed livestock grazing, organic and regenerative farms across the Midwest have already become net carbon sinks.
In addition, these climate solutions offer multiple yield benefits to our farms, communities and environment, including stabilized crop yields, reduced nutrient and soil runoff, increased per-acre profitability, greater resilience to weather extremes, improved air and water quality and enhanced wildlife habitat.
For example, a 1% increase in soil organic matter (58% of which is carbon) from soil-friendly farming practices soaks up and holds an additional 25,000 gallons of rainwater — an important benefit considering the water quality issues that plague Ohio’s downstream communities.
Organic and sustainable farmers are leading the way forward, but our policymakers need to catch up. Encouraging farmer-leader innovation takes deliberate and significant investment. It is imperative that we reduce the risk to farmers as they shift to new climate-friendly agricultural practices by investing in relevant technical assistance, financial incentives and research — especially for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
We will not be able to meaningfully address the global challenge of the climate crisis without recognizing the role agriculture must play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, let’s commit to reinvesting in the soil and giving our farmers the tools they need to build resilience in the years ahead.
Amalie Lipstreu is policy director of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association in Columbus.