The carbon footprint may be on agriculture's face

A ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has put into play all kinds of possibilities for land use in the new century. This is not just conjecture, as a court ruling required the EPA to declare greenhouse gasses to be detrimental to public health and to open a comment period on how to regulate them. This will either result in regulation or legislation to address how to manage land and livestock in the global warming era. I can hear some of you seething right now, and I sympathize; however, the political reality of global warming is real, regardless of the scientific basis for the conclusion that man is heating up the planet and must change practices to reverse the trend. To moderate your emotions, go back to the conservation provisions that were put into farm legislation in the 1980s. Remember "sodbuster" and "swampbuster" as radical concepts to prevent land from being converted from native vegetation to cropland? Then, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) came along and enticed farmers to set aside millions of acres of marginal land. Each of these was resisted until the economics were examined. It is quite possible that programs to counter global warming will make another offer and this time it will be to "re-forest" America. The key is carbon. It is released into the atmosphere naturally by our environment but also by acts of man. Plowing the soil releases it, while growing a crop collects it. The most efficient way to bring the carbon in our air back into balance is to put it back into the ground. This can be done on a very large scale by planting trees on land that was once farmed. The initial talk is to "re-forest" 300 million acres of land. (breathe, breathe, OK) What is it worth to you (government) for me (landowner) to do this? The projection is that farmland converted to growing trees can capture seven tons of carbon per acre/per year. The value of the carbon, per ton, goes as high as $70! Now, you are talking! At $490 per acre, per year, global warming ain't that bad!...High Plains Journal