The verdict is in: The agriculture industry continues to represent a minimal amount of total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when compared to other sectors.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its latest report providing an overview of GHG emissions on April 15, titled “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2020.” EPA prepares the annual report to fulfill obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“U.S. agriculture not only minimally contributes to the overall U.S. greenhouse gas footprint, but the sector also sequestered more carbon in 2020 compared to 2019,” said Shelby Myers, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) economist, in a Market Intel report overview.
“Additionally, overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions decreased from 2019 to 2020 by 10.6 percent.”
Report findings
For 2020, EPA’s report found the agriculture sector was responsible for just 10 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions.
Each year, some emission estimates are recalculated and revisited with improved methods and/or new data. Improvements made to the agriculture sector in the latest report decreased GHG emissions in 2019 by close to 1 percent.
U.S. emissions from all man-made sources in 2020 totaled 5.9 billion metric tons in carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents, a reduction of 9 percent from 2019. Land use, land use changes and forestry trapped 759 million metric tons of carbon in the soil, 12.7 percent of the total U.S. emissions, according to the AFBF overview.
Net emissions—total U.S. GHG emissions with sequestered GHG emissions—totaled 5.2 billion metric tons, down 10.6 percent, the lowest emissions number on record since 1990.
“The latest report shows that when agriculture is recognized as a partner in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, farmers and ranchers have more opportunities to utilize voluntary, market-based incentives that work to reduce environmental footprints while helping farmers and ranchers economically produce the food, fiber and renewable fuel U.S. families, and the world, rely on,” the overview read.
The transportation sector had the largest source of emissions, representing 27.2 percent of total emissions, at 1.6 billion metric tons. Electricity generation followed at 25 percent, then the industrial sector at over 23 percent, and then the commercial and residential sectors at 13 percent.
Ag’s impact
Total emissions from agriculture were about 635 million metric tons in CO2 equivalents in 2020, down 4.3 percent, or 28.8 million metric tons. EPA’s report also included estimates using methodology consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Using this methodology, total ag emissions were 594 million metric tons, down 4.5 percent or 28.2 million metric tons.
The largest sources of agricultural emissions were from agricultural soil management practices (such as fertilizer application), accounting for 316 million metric tons, down 8.4 percent from 2019. Soil management practices accounted for about 50 percent of all ag emissions but only 5 percent of total U.S. emissions.
Next were livestock-related emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, which accounted for 175 million metric tons and 79 million metric tons, respectively, of total U.S. emissions. Livestock-related emissions represented 40 percent of agricultural emissions but only 4 percent of total emissions.
Other agricultural emissions were from fossil fuel combustion (39 million metric tons), rice cultivation (15 million metric tons), urea fertilization (5.3 million metric tons), liming (2.4 million metric tons), mobile combustion (1.3 million metric tons) and field burning (0.6 million metric tons). These categories represented about 1 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions.
The report noted ag GHG emissions in 2020 increased by 6 percent compared to 1990, but the AFBF says that’s not the full story.
“Productivity is increasing, as is the global population, while emissions are on the decline,” the AFBF overview read. “Innovation and advancements in technology have also allowed farmers and ranchers to increase their productivity while using the same amount of inputs.”
Farmers and ranchers are producing 2.78 times more in output per unit of input now than they were in 1948, AFBF said. This comes at a time when cropland has declined by 30 million acres over the last three decades.
“When considering productivity gains compared to agricultural emissions, agriculture has been remarkable at sustainable intensification, in addition to adding practices that even further shrink its environmental footprint,” the overview read. — Anna Miller,WLJ managing editor
