Day One: Climate Change Insights
- Topics:
- Blog, Organic Food & Farming
Thursday, June 19th, 2008, 7:27 AM
Here in Modena the sun is out and the mellow town streets are filled with people — young and old, businessmen and teens — many biking casually down the tree-lined bike paths. (Maybe some of them are even riding the free bikes the city makes available to anyone who wants ‘em and I’m wondering why t American cities haven’t figured out how to be so livable?)
In case it was still unclear to me, I really knew I was at a different kind of conference when our box lunches included hunks of parmesan (we’re near the home of the stuff–Parma), mini bottles of the best balsamic vinegar I’ve ever had (also a specialty of the region), and spelt pasta with sprigs of fresh mint and basil. (All organic, of course). Plus, the beautiful green boxes, and the seemingly plastic containers inside of them, were all made from recyclable materials.
I spent most of today at a special session with experts from around the world presenting some of the most recent evidence about the adaptation and mitigation benefits of organic farming for climate change.
From Claude Aubert of the Association of French Members of IFOAM, we heard about the comparative energy intensity of industrial versus organic animal production. His estimate? Producing 1kg of “conventional” lamb emits thirty times more greenhouse gas emissions than producing the same amount of protein in organic soy.
Paul Hepperly, of the Rodale Institute, shared some of the Institute’s research measuring how much more energy is required in industrial agriculture in the production of synthetic fertilizer compared with the climate-friendly sources of fertility for organic farming.
Tobias Bandel from Soil & More International presented his firm’s initiative to create a system of carbon credits for compost made from green waste. Because compost decreases the methane that would otherwise be emitted from waste and because compost adds fertility to the soil allowing farmers to eschew greenhouse gas emitting fertilizer, Soil & More has been able to secure carbon credits for their composting process. Among its other big customers, Soil & More works with Cape Town to compost 70,000 pounds of municipal green waste a day, transforming it into high-quality compost. Not only does this process save the city money, because it cuts down on the waste the city has to deal with, but the compost saves the city in another way: Cape Town had been importing its compost; now it’s making its own.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Hi. I read a few of your other posts and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links?