Study: Industrial-Scale Farming Prevented a Greenhouse Gas Blast

Intense fertilizer use. Gas-guzzling farm equipment. Plowing up land. At first glance, industrial-scale agriculture doesn't necessarily seem like an environmental positive. But, Stanford scientists say, looks can be deceiving. Jennifer Burney and colleagues calculated the net effect of agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions from 1961 to 2005, a period when crop yields shot up dramatically. And while agriculture does produce plenty of emissions, those totals were overwhelmed by the emissions savings achieved by greater agricultural productivity. In short, higher yields mean plowing up less land, and plowing up less land means more carbon sequestered in undisturbed forests and soils. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.