Protecting agriculture is critical to the climate battle, and when a farm is converted to urban development, convert urban development to farms. That’s the advice of an expert committee examining the carbon sequestration potential of natural and working lands for the California Natural Resources Agency.
Protecting farmland preserves its role as a carbon sink. But the state has steadily lost ground to development and stands to lose up to a million more acres under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. To counter that trend, the academics recommend moving all farmland into an “equilibrium status” by 2050. Any lost acreage should be accounted for by converting unused urban space into ag land, according to the committee’s draft report.
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It also recommends developing habitat buffers along farms and expanding organic ag to 75% of all operations—a reflection of the regenerative farming researchers on the committee.
