We all make choices about how we can reduce our carbon footprint. Some people choose public transportation over driving or switch to energy-saving light bulbs. A resource economist at West Virginia University hopes to help inform farmers about which strategies and systems can limit their contribution to greenhouse gases and possibly provide an alternative source of income.
Mark Sperow, an associate professor of agricultural and natural resource economics in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, has received a $102,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to figure out the carbon costs of various land use activities.
“The objective of this research is to develop carbon supply curves for activities on U.S. agricultural land,” Sperow said. “The cost to store carbon is estimated using the opportunity costs of changes in crop and land management activities required to increase the amount of stored carbon.”
Carbon costs depend upon how fast the land accumulates stored carbon and for how long the carbon is stored. “This research will provide carbon supply curves for the U.S. as a whole, by region, and by cropping systems or crops,” Sperow explained. “Change in fuel use, which reduces carbon dioxide emissions, from reduced tillage intensity and change in land use will also be estimated.”
“I am primarily estimating the carbon storage rates that result from decreased tillage intensity and land-use and management changes that enhance carbon storage and determining a carbon price based on the change in income from these activities,” Sperow said.
The estimated carbon price will represent the minimum compensation that would be required to provide a landowner with the same income as they had prior to adopting the practices that enhance carbon storage.
The estimates could be used in at least three ways, according to Sperow. “First, these estimations could be used by policymakers to aid in their understanding of the economic potential for carbon storage on agricultural land. Second, the estimates provide information to landowners about alternative income streams that may be possible. Third, they could also serve as an indicator to industries that may be required to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions about the cost of carbon dioxide offsets that could be used instead of directly reducing their emissions.”
-WVU-
dw/10/22/10
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