According to a new scientific study

Jun 15, 2010 13:56 GMT  ·  By
Intensive, high-yield agriculture prevents millions of tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere every year
   Intensive, high-yield agriculture prevents millions of tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere every year

Agriculture has for a long time been known to be one of the most important contributors to the global warming effect our planet is currently experiencing. Right next to the food industry, farming the lands produces a high percentage of the toxic chemicals that promote climate change, and endanger millions of people worldwide. But there is hope still, experts say. It would appear that high-yield agriculture, the kind that produces a lot on each hectare of land, is also preventing global warming from happening at an even more accelerated pace, ScienceDaily reports.

According to a new study by two researchers at Stanford Earth, it would appear that the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main greenhouse gas out there today – did not manage to enter the atmosphere on account of high-yield agriculture. Their study covers the latter part of the 20th century, and bears significant implications for creating new approach on staving off the disastrous effects of climate change.

One of the main (indirect) mechanisms through which this form of land management acts is that it reduces the need for cutting down trees to make room for more exploitable land. This is one of the main reasons why the situation got to be this desperate in the first place – millions of acres of forests were cut down over the centuries, as primitive agricultural tools did not ensure a certain batch of land produced the quantity of produce its owners expected of it. Over the years, as production means improved, the situation changed, and a single hectare of land can now support more people than ever.

“Our results dispel the notion that modern intensive agriculture is inherently worse for the environment than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things,” explains the lead author of the new paper, expert Jennifer Burney. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford University Program on Food Security and the Environment. Details of the investigation will be published online, in an upcoming issue of the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),

“Every time forest or shrub land is cleared for farming, the carbon that was tied up in the biomass is released and rapidly makes its way into the atmosphere – usually by being burned. Yield intensification has lessened the pressure to clear land and reduced emissions by up to 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year,” Burney explains. “When we look at the costs of the research and development that went into these improvements, we find that funding agricultural research ranks among the cheapest ways to prevent greenhouse gas emissions,” adds Carnegie Institution postdoctoral researcher Steven Davis, also a coauthor of the PNAS paper.