LibGuides: GEOG 311-3-3 Environmental Management: Agriculture

Greenhouse Gases and Agriculture

Ten percent of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are from crop and livestock production, excluding emissions from the use of fossil fuels or fertilizer production.

Agricultural activities produce Greenhouse Gases (GHG) which end up in the atmosphere, but they can also remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it as soil organic carbon (SOC).

Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

In gas state (CO₂) is found in the Earth's atmosphere. Through photosynthesis, green plants convert this CO₂, into sugars that the plant uses to grow. In turn, this plant material is then eaten by other organisms-microbes, cows, and humans, or decomposes into energy-rich carbon materials that can be stored for thousands or millions of years before being converted back to CO₂.

For example, soils contain vast amounts of carbon in organic matter (humus), and the carbon in fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, which is solar energy trapped by plants eons ago.

Soil Carbon is dynamic. Changes in the amount of carbon stored in soil organic matter depend on the relative rates of carbon input from plant litter and carbon emitted as CO₂ via decomposition. If carbon inputs are more significant than carbon loss, then the amount stored increases; if carbon input is less than carbon loss, the amount of carbon held decreases.

Nitrous Oxide (N₂O)

Nitrous oxide emissions can originate directly from field-applied organic and inorganic fertilizers, crop residue decomposition, cultivation of organic soils, and from the storage of manure.

Scientists assume that about 1% of the nitrogen added to farm fields is emitted as N₂O. However, this can vary widely due to soil water content influenced by the topography (especially hilliness) of the land and soil clay content. Wetter soils tend to have higher N₂O emissions.

Farms operations can also produce indirect emissions. This is where N₂O is made as part of day-to-day farm operations enters the environment and can impact the environment outside the farm's boundaries. The typical manner in which this happens is by N₂O leaching from fields or emitted into the air as ammonia gas.

Once lost from the farm, this nitrogen can find its way into adjacent environments where it can be converted and emitted as N₂O. Although not produced on farms, this N₂O is from nitrogen used on the farm; hence, it must be counted as farm-derived N₂O. A recent example of just such a situation occurred in Hullcar, B.C.

Ingestion of excessive amounts of nitrogen has been linked to various health problems.

Methane (CH₄)

When carbon-containing materials decay in a low oxygen environment, microbes in such environments produce methane. In farm operations, methane occurs either through enteric fermentation and through manure stored on farmers and feedlots.

For Additional Information See

Natural climate solutions
Better stewardship of land is needed to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement goal of holding warming to below 2 °C; however, confusion persists about the specific set of land stewardship options available and their mitigation potential. To address this, we identify and quantify “natural climate solutions” (NCS): 20 conservation, restoration, and improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands. We find that the maximum potential of NCS—when constrained by food security, fiber security, and biodiversity conservation—is 23.8 petagrams of CO₂ equivalent (PgCO₂e)y −1 (95% CI 20.3–37.4). This is ≥30% higher than prior estimates, which did not include the full range of options and safeguards considered here. About half of this maximum (11.3 PgCO₂e y −1 ) represents cost-effective climate mitigation, assuming the social cost of CO₂ pollution is ≥100 USD MgCO₂e −1 by 2030. Natural climate solutions can provide 37% of cost-effective CO₂ mitigation needed through 2030 for a >66% chance of holding warming to below 2 °C. One-third of this cost-effective NCS mitigation can be delivered at or below 10 USD MgCO₂ −1 . Most NCS actions—if effectively implemented—also offer water filtration, flood buffering, soil health, biodiversity habitat, and enhanced climate resilience. Work remains to better constrain uncertainty of NCS mitigation estimates. Nevertheless, existing knowledge reported here provides a robust basis for immediate global action to improve ecosystem stewardship as a major solution to climate change.
Environmental Sustainability of Canadian Agriculture
The Canadian agriculture industry has evolved significantly over the past 30 years. Across Canada the number of farms has decreased while the average farm size, crop area and number of head of livestock per farm have all increased. Advances in technology and farming practices have allowed farmers to manage
much larger operations with the same or less labour, making the structural adjustment towards intensification possible and leading to economies of scale which have helped to offset decreasing profit margins.
Greenhouse gases and agriculture
Agriculture emits all three greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N20). These gases differ, though, in their ability to trap heat; tonne for tonne, CH4 is more than 20 times as effective at trapping heat as CO2, and N20 is about 300 times as effective as CO2.
Reducing agricultural greenhouse gases
While agriculture activities account for approximately 4% of B.C.’s total emissions, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural activities can be reduced through more efficient management of carbon and nitrogen flows within agricultural systems. Here are some beneficial management practices recognized for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Food, Environment and Climate Change by Erinn Gilson (Editor); Sarah Kenehan (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book
ISBN: 9781786609236
Publication Date: 2018-10-18
This volume takes up the pressing issues of justice and responsibility that arise at the intersection of food and agricultural systems, environmental degradation, and global climate change. The diverse contributions examine both the various ways that food and agricultural practices contribute to environmental degradation, especially climate change, and the impact that climate change is having and will have on food and agricultural practices. Central questions include: How can the connections between food and agriculture, environmental issues, and climate change best be understood? What are the ethical and political responsibilities of various parties in relation to this nexus of problems? Whose knowledge, concerns, and voices are, and should be, valued in making global climate policy and agricultural and food policy? What are the limitations of existing policies, practices, and theoretical frameworks for understanding and responding to these complex problems?

City of Kelowna - Agricultural Plan

Agriculture is historically significant in Kelowna, shaping both its development pattern and economy. Agricultural land plays an essential role in improving our residents’ quality of life, offers an aesthetically diverse landscape, is an essential part of our green infrastructure (retaining rainwater, preventing flooding and recharging aquifers), and ensures food security. An agriculture plan focuses on a community's farm area to discover practical solutions to challenges, identify opportunities to strengthen farming and ultimately contribute to agriculture and the community's long-term sustainability.

City of Kelowna Agricultural Plan
12,000 hectares are zoned for agricultural use, with 8,600 hectares are in the Agriculture Land Reserve.
City of Kelowna - Agriculture and Rural Areas
RDCO - Agricultural Plan
The Regional District of Central Okanagan (RDCO) Agricultural Plan applies to those
areas, mainly consisting of lands in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), that lie outside
the boundaries and jurisdictions of the City of Kelowna, the district municipalities of
Peachland and Lake Country and First Nations Reserves.
RDCO - Agricultural Plan Maps

Agriculture Fact Sheets

Orchards and Vineyards

Life cycle assessment of mulch use on Okanagan apple orchards: Part 1 - Attributional
Food production contributes substantially to anthropogenic environmental impacts, including 19–29% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Use of wood and bark chip mulch as a soil cover has previously been found to reduce direct N2O emissions and increase soil organic carbon on apple orchards. The current study expanded the scope of this prior investigation to include the “upstream” processes that support production and transportation of the mulch used on orchards using ISO-compliant life cycle assessment. An “attributional” life cycle assessment was conducted to determine the net life cycle environmental impacts of the production of apples on an Okanagan orchard, focusing on the relative contribution of bark and wood chip mulch used as a soil amendment, both compared to other life cycle stages and processes, and to a system producing apples without the use of mulch. This research focused on only the orchard-level GHG reductions benefit associated with mulch use. A variety of environmental impact categories were examined including human toxicity, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, depletion of abiotic resources (elements, ultimate reserves), photochemical oxidation, ozone layer depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, acidification potential, climate change, eutrophication, land use – land competition, and energy use (including non-renewable: fossil, nuclear, primary forest; and renewable: biomass, geothermal, solar, water and wind). When the entire life cycle was considered, apples produced using mulch had higher life cycle GHG emissions than those without mulch, as well as higher impacts in all of the other impact categories considered. Due to these higher emissions with mulch, the results do not support the recommendation of mulch application on orchards as a GHG mitigation strategy, nor with respect to the other impact categories considered.
WATER CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN VINEYARDS AND APPLE ORCHARDS: STRATEGIES FOR MITIGATING GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
UBC - PhD Dissertation. Micro-irrigation scheduling, fertigation and mulching can be used by growers to
improve the nutrient and water-use efficiency of crop production. Agriculture contributes to global warming through emission of greenhouse gases CO2, N2O, and CH4. There is little information about how management practices affect N2O emissions from vineyard and orchard soils.
Sour Grapes: Mitigating the Risk of Overtourism in British Columbia’s Eno-tourism
Master Thesis - The economic health of regions dependent on tourism are threatened by overtourism. Through the use of sustainable development practices, this risk can be mitigated. This study examines the sustainability of the Okanagan Valley, the dominant wine tourism destination in British Columbia. Using case studies, the Okanagan is compared with wine tourism regions around the world. This study finds that there is a relatively low amount of sustainability in the Okanagan relative to other wine regions. Following this, this study finds that the Okanagan’s high degree of seasonality, lack of training opportunities, and lack of standardized practices have the greatest potential for improvement. Three policies are proposed and analyzed to address these shortcomings: an expansion of educational programs, sustainability standards, and off-season event grants. As a result of this analysis, a policy package containing elements of all three policy proposals is recommended.