Carbon Sequestration, Nutrient Bioavailability, and Environmental Services from Organic Agriculture

Non-Technical Summary: This project addresses needs of 3 stakeholder groups: organic producers, organic certifying agents and agencies, and purchasers/traders of carbon credits. These groups need a scientifically sound yet simple estimation of the carbon sequestration and net greenhouse gas (GHG) balance likely in a given organic cropping system scenario. Producers will benefit from the additional information of nutrient availability and timing. A user-friendly Life Cycle Assessment tool adapted for use with organic farms will be developed and introduced to organic producers and certifying agents through in-person training sessions, a webinar on eOrganic, and eOrganic publications on using the integrated ?OFFoot? tool and the process of Life Cycle Assessment. Presentations and hands-on workshops will be made at regional and national meetings of agricultural producers and certifiers. Undergraduate majors in Organic Agricultural Systems will be targeted for summer internships to take part in both research and outreach activities. Both producers and carbon credit traders will benefit economically by access to a validated model for carbon sequestration in organic systems that will allow sale and trade of carbon credits for organic production. Environmental benefits will accrue from the sequestration of carbon, minimizing of greenhouse gas emissions, and efficiency of nutrient utilization that will all be improved by using the outputs of this project as farm management planning tools. Organic producers, organic certifying agents and agencies, and purchasers/traders of carbon credits are calling for the studies and tools proposed here. Stakeholders are involved both in developing the proposed research and models (particularly to ensure usability of resulting models), and after the models are developed (in conducting carbon, greenhouse gas, and nutrient bioavailability assessments of the ?focus farms?). Both organic producers and organic certifying agents will be trained to use the user-friendly integrated model for Life Cycle Assessment, carbon sequestration, and GHG emissions, also allowing an evaluation of the resulting output. <P> Approach: We will determine the carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas balance, and nutrient availability effects of common inputs, crops, and practices used in organic farming by conducting laboratory and field experiments to parameterize and evaluate predictive models. Decomposition kinetics of these materials will be determined from lab incubations. Characterizations will be accomplished by tracking C and N pools in lab-incubated and field-applied samples We will assess the availability of macro- and micro-nutrients using short-term lab incubations with ion exchange membranes. We will develop a model, OFFoot, which will simulate carbon dynamics, account for GHG emissions and nutrient dynamics under organic management. OFFoot will be complemented by Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) to evaluate ecosystem services of organic farming. OFFoot will be developed by farmer-collaborators and modelers/researchers. LCA will quantify carbon, nutrients and energy on organic farms in addition to off-farm manufacturing, transportation, disposal, and recycling. The modeling tools will allow optimization of organic farming subsystems and generate a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) for each subsystem. Other ecosystem processes will be configured to expand the LCA system boundary, automate the LCA computations and evaluate the farm carbon footprint. The model-LCA tool will be applied to 5 organic focus farm case studies to assess their carbon balance. Results will support the certification process of the organic farms and determine compliance of their products to National and International market requirements. Project participants will meet twice a year with the these growers to review progress on the modeling and lab studies, and solicit suggestions for adapting the LCA to grower needs. Once the modeling tools are completed and results from the case study farms have been generated the model-LCA will be delivered to target audiences via eOrganic publications, a webinar, a workshop for certifiers, and presentations at organic conferences. The carbon, nutrient, and LCA tools will be put on line at WSU with links from eOrganic. County extension faculty will be invited to host an in-person training with the tools. The International Organic Inspectors Association and Accredited Certifiers Association will be contacted to arrange for training of their members at one of their scheduled events. Presentations will be made to growers at venues such as the Washington Tilth Producers annual conference, and at other major conferences. The impact will be measured by tracking the end-users of the LCA tool. A record will be kept of the workshops' participants. On-line registration will be required before downloading the tool, its manuals and training webinars. The ability of the case study growers to use the models will be measured as work progresses. They will complete an evaluation regarding the learning that occurred and resultant changes in management. A pre-test/post-test evaluation will be used for the webinar and for training meetings to measure learning. Organic certifiers will be queried about how the tools will be used to improve their evaluation of compliance with organic standards.