Assessing Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunities and Implementation Strategies for Agricultural Land Management in the United States

Approximately 6% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from agriculture. This number could be reduced through the use of on-farm management practices, such as switching to no-till, reducing fallow, managing species composition on grazing lands, and adjusting management of nitrogen fertilizer. Efforts are under way by government, industry, and others to incentivize such practices by creating new business opportunities or revenue for farmers and ranchers. This assessment reviews a wide range of agricultural practices and provides a roadmap and resource for programs and initiatives that are designing protocols, metrics, or incentives to engage farmers and ranchers in large-scale efforts to enhance GHG mitigation on working agricultural land in the United States.

Author(s): Lydia P. Olander, Alison J. Eagle, Justin S. Baker, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Brian C. Murray, Alexandra Kravchenko, Lucy R. Henry, and Robert B. Jackson

Published: October 2011

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