June 10th, 2019
By John Larson
Building an Ecosystem Services Market for America’s Farmers and Ranchers
Well-managed farmland and ranchland can provide much more than the food on our plate. From helping to clean our air and water to building the healthy soils we all rely on; American agriculture is vital to achieving a sustainable future for us all.
That’s why American Farmland Trust is proud to announce that we are joining the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium as a new Legacy Partner. The ESMC seeks to advance the development of a market-based approach to promoting land stewardship to build healthy soils, sequester soil carbon, and conserve and improve our nation’s water.
The planned market offers the singular focus of enabling and encouraging farmers and ranchers to adopt and sustain conservation management practices to improve soil health, reduce GHG emissions, and improve related water quality and reduce water use.
As a society, we need farmers to take on a higher level of management on their lands to protect the soils that grow our food and help restore our planet. Development of a market-based approach to promoting land stewardship, building healthy soils, sequestering soil carbon, and conserving and improving our nation’s water is what we as a society should embrace to help farmers. Ecosystem services markets will help provide a mechanism for farmers to transition to better practices and a catalyst for implementation — especially as they struggle in this difficult farm economy.
To learn more about the ESMC, visit https://ecosystemservicesmarket.org/. For more on AFT’s efforts to help farmers combat climate change, visit farmland.org/climate.