Thanks for a great interview/discussion.
While I wholeheartedly endorse the type of agricultural approaches that Connor describes to sequester carbon in soils (more of a permaculture/regenerative agriculture approach), I’ve noticed that there are similar initiatives that appear to have identical aims that seem more geared to working within the prevailing industrial agricultural practices here in North America. So whenever you hear about sequestering soil in the carbon, not all initiatives are equal, and some are downright suspect.
With that in mind, I’d wonder if Connor or anyone else can comment on something that I have noticed with regards to initiatives to increase soil health to alleviate climate change and water quality:
One such initiative is backed by Monsanto and other industrial ag interests, and distressingly, a few large environmental organizations. [http://soilhealthpartnership.org/index.html].
Among all of the practices that are fall under this particular initiative, one in particular catches my attention, and explains (I think) why Monsanto and others are backing this. You will often read about “conservation tillage” and “no till techniques” in promotional literature alongside of techniques like cover cropping, buffer strips, etc. What you never hear described is that conservation tillage and no-till techniques can be code for genetically engineered crops and herbicide- (often glysophate) based weed control methods. No-till agriculture with round-up ready soy and corn can theoretically increase soil carbon and decrease runoff, thereby providing carbon sequestration and water-quality benefit. But at what cost?
My fear is that these slick PR machines will cause most people who are interested in this kind of work to conflate the kind of practices advocated by the Soil Health Partnership vs. the Carbon Farming described by Connor. If I’m right, I wish there was a good way to better publicize this issue and raise a “greenwashing” alert…