[gdubs]

The EPA graphs on Agriculture emissions are misleading. They don’t include things like the petrochemical production that goes primarily to creating fertilizer, the transportation costs that are baked into the global food production system, and they don’t adequately account for land use change related to agriculture. On land use alone, if we ignore the fact that natural forests have been destroyed for mono crop animal feed production, we’re missing a huge carbon sink. That land wasn’t always farm land.

[brandmeyer]

I urge you to read the report. It is quite accessible by the lay reader without resorting on the media to filter it for you.

For example, there are detailed models and measurements for both soil management (significant) and fertilizer (negligible).

[gdubs]

I have read the entire report — several years ago. I also own a farm that’s converting from conventional to regenerative practices, and around 20 acres of conservation projects to restore natural savanna and oak woodland.

What you’re seeing under Agriculture fertilization is the application of fertilizer, not the production of it. They’re talking about the c02 released by using it, or the c02 expended generating the fertilizer in the first place.

Land use change is an entirely different category in the report. So even though the reason we’re changing land use is to farm feed crops for animals primarily, it’s listed as it’s own thing.

It goes on and on.

For an actually accurate picture of how land and agriculture actually affect the climate, see the incredibly well-researched, encyclopedic book “The Carbon Farming Solution”.

[brandmeyer]

There are separate line-items for the industrial process to create urea and the release after application to soil. Both of them are very tiny fractions of the total CO2 budget.

[gdubs]

It sounds like you feel strongly that agriculture is accurately represented by this very outdated EPA assessment. I really don’t have time to have a drawn out debate on it and we’ll have to agree to disagree.

But for you or anyone else who wants to see an alternative take, a quick search pulled up this McKinsey analysis which, while I’ve only skimmed it, seems much more in line with my understanding which is that agriculture — when fairly measured — represents more like a quarter of our emissions. And there’s no getting around the fact that the vast majority of that is currently tailored towards meat production, directly or indirectly.

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/agricul...