Novel technologies for emission reduction complement conservation agriculture to achieve negative emissions from row-crop production

Abstract

Plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Because agriculture's productivity is based on this process, a combination of technologies to reduce emissions and enhance soil carbon storage can allow this sector to achieve net negative emissions while maintaining high productivity. Unfortunately, current row-crop agricultural practice generates about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and European Union. To reduce these emissions, significant effort has been focused on changing farm management practices to maximize soil carbon. In contrast, the potential to reduce emissions has largely been neglected. Through a combination of innovations in digital agriculture, crop and microbial genetics, and electrification, we estimate that a 71% (1,744 kg CO₂e/ha) reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from row crop agriculture is possible within the next 15 y. Importantly, emission reduction can lower the barrier to broad adoption by proceeding through multiple stages with meaningful improvements that gradually facilitate the transition to net negative practices. Emerging voluntary and regulatory ecosystems services markets will incentivize progress along this transition pathway and guide public and private investments toward technology development. In the difficult quest for net negative emissions, all tools, including emission reduction and soil carbon storage, must be developed to allow agriculture to maintain its critical societal function of provisioning society while, at the same time, generating environmental benefits.

Keywords: agriculture emission reduction; crop genetics; electrification; innovation; soil health.

Fig. 1.

Technical improvements facilitate deep decarbonization of grain production. Numbers are shown as kilograms of CO₂e per hectare and are separated by the emission source. The phases (optimize, replace, and redesign) are distinguished by the technical readiness of the enabling innovations. Implementing the optimization phase is largely possible using current technology, while replacement-phase technologies could be available in 2 to 5 y and redesign-phase technologies in 5 to 15 y.

Fig. 2.

Descriptions of the technologies that will be adopted in each phase in response to new policy and farm economics. The combination of technology in each system will lead to a dramatic reduction in farm emissions. ¹Intercropping, rotation, and diversification image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Natural Resources Conservation Service. ²Electrical or biological nitrogen synthesis image credit: Wikimedia Commons/US Fish and Wildlife Service. ³Electric tractor image credit: Kubota. ⁴Automated small implements/robotics image credit: Chinmay Soman, Terrasentia.