Abstract
The global crop sector is estimated to contribute about 10.4% of global GHGs annually. The Canadian crop sector is assessed as adding about 6.5% to total national emissions. These estimates over report the impact of farming as they ignore the complex interaction of cropping with the environment and the role land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) play in sequestering carbon. This study quantifies the contribution of land use to GHG emissions and removals in the Canadian Prairies crop sector between 1985 and 2016. The modeling effort explores how different farming practices (i.e., conventional tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), zero tillage (ZT), summerfallow, crop rotations, and residue retention) and input usage rates (i.e., fertilizer and fuel) affect GHG emissions in different soil climate zones and provinces in the Prairies region. The adoption of sustainable practices led to an 80% decline in GHG emissions in the crop sector between 1985 and 2016. Since 2005, the baseline for Canada’s Paris commitment, sectoral emissions dropped 53%, more than is required to meet the 2030 target. Most promising, the crop sector was a net GHG sink between 2013 and 2016 in Alberta and between 2006 and 2016 in Saskatchewan. As positive as these developments have been, more can be done by directing research to identify options for reducing GHGs in Manitoba (which made only minimal improvements as farmers there faced conditions requiring continuous use of conventional tillage practices), to explore better nitrogen management (a major continuing source of GHG from cropping) and by searching for low carbon transport options.
Highlights
Canada ranks as the fourth largest per capita emitter of GHGs among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, accounting, in aggregate, for about 2% of global emissions in 2019
Soil-climate zones are accounted for by dividing the cropland in each province into 22 crop districts—defined by Statistics Canada’s Field Crop Survey—and five soil climate zones—Brown, Dark-brown, Thin-black, Thickblack and Grey [17]
soil organic matter (SOM) is broken down more rapidly, and carbon from the soil is disbursed into the atmosphere as CO2 [50]
Summary
Canada ranks as the fourth largest per capita emitter of GHGs among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, accounting, in aggregate, for about 2% of global emissions in 2019. In 2016, Canada’s emission intensity was 0.49 kg CO2-equivalents (CO2eq), higher than the OECD average of 0.34 kg CO2eq [1]. GHGs in the Canadian Prairies crop sector biologicalcarbon.ca The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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