Green fields: USDA testing climate credits with Iowa, Illinois farmers

Des Moines Register
7:36 PM, Jun. 11, 2011
Written by PHILIP BRASHER & DAN PILLER

With the Obama administration looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Agriculture Department is trying to perfect methods for farmers and landowners to get paid for emission-saving practices.

A $2.8 million project in Iowa and Illinois that the USDA is helping fund will study methods of cutting back on the amount of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, that escapes from farmland as a result of farmers using nitrogen fertilizer. The three-year project will involve 100 farmers who will test several methods for reducing nitrous oxide, including reducing their fertilizer use or using practices that reduce the amount of nitrogen that is washed off of fields or emitted into the air.

The idea of this and similar projects the USDA is funding is to quantify how much greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by various methods and how much farmers and landowners could earn in emission-reduction credits, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

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