In Illinois, Argonne National Laboratory’s newest study shows how new practices can help American farms prosper while capturing more carbon than they produce, specifically looking at corn and soy farming in Iowa, and helping the U.S. reach its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Scientists who specialize in agroecosystems modeling and life-cycle analysis (LCA) from Colorado State University (CSU) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory looked at the trade-offs and synergies between sustainable intensification and carbon-sequestering conservation measures in a real-world scenario. They used two models — DayCent and the Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Technologies (GREET) LCA — to evaluate a farming area upstream of Des Moines, Iowa.
According to the study, harvesting 30% of the corn stover for biofuel production would increase farm revenues, double net profitability and increase overall biofuel production from the landscape by 17–20%. Removal of the stover would also mitigate GHGs somewhat, but it reduced the baseline amount of good carbon in the soil by 40%. In comparison, integrated approaches that include winter cover cropping and/or tillage intensity reduction would increase carbon in the soil, improve farm profitability and mitigate more GHGs.
