Well, the environmental impact of U.S. agriculture has been
gaining attention from both urban and also rural areas. Over
the past few months, there's been a lot of buzz about
sustainability and conservation and carbon credits. USDA
Undersecretary in residence at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Greg Ibach joins us now with the latest.
And as always, thank you for very much for very much for
joining us here under secretary we appreciate your time.
Now, for those who don't know, what are some of the most
common misconceptions about the environmental impact of
agriculture?
Well, I think the two biggest misconceptions, Janet, are
that we got it all figured out and it's simple. What we're
doing right now at the University of Nebraska is we're
looking back at 40 years of research where we've done things
to look at how carbon sequestered in different soil types
under different tillage and range land conditions. And we're
going to try to catalog those so that we can look and
understand the science and be able to advise farmers and
ranchers about what the conditions on their farm might mean
to them as far as carbon.
So give us an update if you would on carbon credits and how
they work.
Carbon credits is based on the theory that there's some
things that you do in your business, in your manufacturing
firm or on your farm that sequester carbon out of the
environment and put it back into the soil or into the plant
material. And there are some things that you do like driving
your car or taking your kids to school that emit carbon. And
so the carbon trading system is based on the concept that
those that sequester, earn credits and those that, you know,
emit, need to perhaps buy credits to cover those sins. As a
farmer or rancher myself, my concern is that if I sell my
credits off my ranch, and then I tried to sell my calves,
and the carbon company comes to the feedlot and says, 'Hey,
you need to pay us for some of those carbons that you're
releasing into the environment,' that he's just going to bid
less for my calves. So what we'd like to do at the
university, is figure out is there a model where I can
transfer my credit with my calves, the corn farmer can
transfer his credits with his corn, and we have a beef
production system.
Now Nebraska is known as the beef state and the
environmental impact of beef production has certainly
received a lot of attention through the years. Now I
understand UNL is hosting an event to debunk some common
misconceptions about the industry. What can you tell us
about it?
Well, we're gonna have Frank Mitloehner from University of
California-Davis, we're going to have Galen Erickson from
UNL. We're going to have Larry Quint from Conagra. And we're
going to have Colin Woodall from NCBA join us at a Heuermann
Lecture on October 25 to talk about the system, the winners
the losers and how we balance those out.
Now, if folks wanted more information on that event, where
could they find those details?
Well, they can find those details at unl.edu. And then we
can also they can watch it on live streamed or recorded.
All right, well thank you very much for joining us this
morning, Undersecretary Greg Ibach, with the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln's Institute of Ag and Natural Resources
connecting with us this morning again, thank you very much
Undersecretary.