USDA Carbon Management Tool to Help Farmers and Ranchers with Soil Carbon Sequestration

WASHINGTON, March 23, 2005—U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Chief Bruce Knight today announced the availability of the Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases-Carbon Management Evaluation Tool (COMET-VR) to help farmers and ranchers report the effectiveness of various methods for agricultural soil carbon sequestration.
The COMET-VR model was released today in coordination with the Department of Energy’s release of interim final rules on the general and technical guidelines for the voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, sequestration and emission reductions.
“COMET-VR gives us the ability to translate the President’s goal of an 18 percent voluntary reduction into something achievable for our nation’s farmers and ranchers,” said Knight. “In fact, farmers that either no-till or use conservation tillage and ranchers using grazing management practices provide a sink for carbon benefiting their farms and ranches and the environment as a whole.”
The concept of carbon sinks is based on the natural ability of trees, other plants and the soil to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store the carbon in wood, roots, leaves and the soil. COMET-VR delivers an estimate of annual soil carbon fluxes along with fuel and fertilizer use, which can be reported to the §1605(b) voluntary reporting system. This tool can aide producers in making their management decisions. Producers insert their current and alternative farming and grazing practices into COMET-VR, which then estimates changes in fuel use, fertilizer and carbon storage from each alternative.
Knight noted, “While COMET-VR has a great deal of potential for future management of farm greenhouse gas emissions, it also provides a valuable cost benefit to producers. With diesel prices around two dollars a gallon, COMET-VR can help farmers and ranchers reduce fuel use and save significant amounts of money.”
President Bush charged the Department of Energy (DOE) with improving the current voluntary emission reduction registration program under section 1605(b) of the 1992 Energy Policy Act because of concerns with the growing threat of global climate change from increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. The President directed USDA to prepare the new accounting rules in the guidelines that will be used to estimate greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration from forestry and agricultural activities.
DOE is leading an interagency process—with stakeholder involvement—to enhance the accuracy, reliability and verifiability of emissions and emissions reductions data reported to DOE. DOE is seeking comment on the new guidelines during a 60-day public review period.
A field test of NRCS’ COMET-VR was completed by individuals involved in crop production, livestock grazing and conservation planning from six states: Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Wyoming.

The field test concluded that the web-based estimation tool is easily usable by individual farmers and ranchers with no training needed. The design of the tool is adequate to allow participants to complete an assessment of how their management decisions are affecting carbon sequestration and greenhouse gases. One improvement suggested by the field test was the addition of more sufficient crop rotations, which is being addressed by research at Colorado State University. COMET-VR will have expanded rotations by late summer based on the National Resources Inventory data.

In addition, field test participants also have expressed a need that the text ought to be expanded to detail how management affects soil carbon change. This concern will be addressed once feedback from the general public is received as part of the Federal Register review process.

Two public workshops are planned to discuss these latest revisions to the 1605(b) guidelines. The first, to be held by DOE in late April, will address the full scope of issues raised by the guidelines. USDA and DOE will jointly host a workshop on May 5, 2005, that will focus on those issues raised by the agricultural and forestry sections of the guidelines.

More information on these workshops and on the guidelines is available at www.usda.gov/oce/gcpo/greenhousegasreporting.htm and
www.pi.energy.gov/enhancingGHGregistry/. Those wishing to offer comment on the proposed guidelines can do so by emailing 1605bguidelines.comments@hq.doe.gov.

Additional information on COMET-VR can be found at http://cometvr.colostate.edu/. For more information on NRCS and its programs, visit the web site at www.nrcs.usda.gov.
 

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