How does agriculture contribute to greenhouse gases?
At every stage, food provisioning releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Farming in particular releases significant amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, two powerful greenhouse gases. Methane is produced by livestock during digestion due to enteric fermentation and is released via belches.
Where do greenhouse gases come from in agriculture?
Cattle belching (CH4) and the addition of natural or synthetic fertilizers and wastes to soils (N2O) represent the largest sources, making up 65 percent of agricultural emissions globally. Smaller sources include manure management, rice cultivation, field burning of crop residues, and fuel use on farms.
How does agriculture and farming cause global warming?
Dominant sources of agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs) include carbon dioxide (CO2) from tropical deforestation, methane (CH4) from livestock and rice production, and nitrous oxide (N2O) from fertilizing or burning croplands. Agriculture is responsible for about half of global methane emissions.
What is agricultural greenhouse?
Greenhouse farming is the process of growing crops and vegetables in a greenhouse. Doing so typically allows farmers to increase their performance and yields, while improving the quality of products. Greenhouse farming protects crops from external threats such as certain pests and extreme weather events.
Summary
Overview
Agricultural activities emit the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane.
Carbon dioxide emissions come from things such as tillingof fields, planting of crops, and even the shipment of crops or food cultivated to markets for revenue. Agricultural related emissions of carbon dioxide account for around 24% of th…
Land use
Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas increases through land use in four main ways:
• CO2 releases linked to deforestation
• Methane releases from rice cultivation
• Methane releases from enteric fermentation in cattle
Livestock
Livestock and livestock-related activities such as deforestation and increasingly fuel-intensive farming practices are responsible for over 18% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, including:
• 9% of global carbon dioxide emissions
• 35–40% of global methane emissions (chiefly due to enteric fermentation and manure)
Soil erosion
Large scale farming can cause large amounts of soil erosion, causing between 25 and 40 percent of soil to reach water sources, with it carrying the pesticides and fertilizers used by farmers, thus polluting bodies of water further. The trend to constantly bigger farms has been highest in United States and Europe, due to financial arrangements, contract farming. Bigger farms tend to favour monocu…
Global estimates
In 2019 the IPCC reported that 13%-21% of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses came specifically from the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses Sector (AFOLU). Emissions from agriculture of nitrous oxide, methane and carbon dioxide make up to half of the greenhouse-gases produced by the overall food industry, or 80% of agricultural emissions.
Mitigation
Agriculture is often not included in government emissions reductions plans. For example, the agricultural sector is exempt from the EU emissions trading scheme which covers around 40% of the EU greenhouse gas emissions.
Several mitigation measures for use in developed countries have been proposed:
• breeding more resilient crop varieties, and diversification of crop species
See also
• Agroecology
• Climate change and fisheries
• Climate change and meat production
• Effects of climate change on agriculture