Reality Cheques - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 67

US$500 million dollars in annual operating costs. One third of the
cropland in the watershed would have to be taken out of farming in order
to reduce run-off of eroded soil, pesticides, nutrients and bacterial and
protozoan pathogens.
Instead, the city opted for a collaborative approach with farmers. It
supported the establishment of a Watershed Agricultural Council in the
early 1990s, a partnership between farmers, government and private
organizations with the dual aim of protecting the city's drinking water
supply and sustaining the rural economy. It works on whole-farm planning
with each farm, tailoring solutions to local conditions in order to maximize
reductions in off-site costs. The first two phases of the programme, leading
to the 85 per cent target in pollution reduction, cost some US$100
million, a small proportion of the cost of the filtration plant and its
annual costs. Not only do taxpayers benefit from this approach to joint
agri-environmental management, but so do farmers, the environment and
rural economies. 42 The only surprising thing is that these initiatives are
still rare.
Agriculture's Carbon Dividend
The greatest environmental problem we face anywhere in the world now
is climate change provoked by rising levels of anthropogenic greenhouse
gases. Climate change threatens to disrupt economies and ecosystems, to
challenge existing land uses, to substantially raise sea levels, and to drown
coastal lands and even some whole countries. In order to slow down and
eventually to reverse these changes, we need to reduce human-induced
emissions of these gases, as well as to find ways of capturing or locking
up carbon from the atmosphere. Sustainable agriculture can make an
important contribution to climate change mitigation through both
emissions reductions and carbon sequestration. As the international
markets for carbon expand, so sequestered carbon could represent an
important new income source for farmers. 43
Agricultural systems contribute to carbon emissions through the direct
use of fossil fuels in farm operations, the indirect use of embodied energy
in inputs that are energy intensive to manufacture and transport (partic-
ularly fertilizers and pesticides), and the cultivation of soils resulting in
the loss of soil organic matter. Agriculture is also an accumulator of
carbon, offsetting losses when organic matter is accumulated in the soil,
or when above-ground woody biomass acts either as a permanent sink or
is used as an energy source that substitutes for fossil fuels.