UMass Carbon Farming Initiative: Growing Climate Smart Agriculture
Students will work directly with the Carbon Farming Initiative’s two campus Agroforestry demonstration plots at the Agriculture Learning Center with Stockbridge School of Agriculture faculty Lisa DePiano. Students in this practicum will co-manage the fall chestnut harvest, the processing of nuts at a local chestnut processing center and conduct direct sales of the nuts and chestnut flour at the student farmers market and other local markets. In addition to maintaining the two demonstration plots and managing the chestnut harvest, students will gain experience collecting data on both plots using Arc GIS Field Maps and survey 123 database and sharing the data with Arc GIS Storymaps. *We will find a time that we can all meet at the Agriculture Learning Center weekly and other times will be scheduled accordingly 1 to 2 credits of practicum available 1 credit hour is 3 hours per week)
Agriculture and Climate Change
Food and agriculture systems are responsible for about one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These emissions come from many stages of the food system: growing crops and raising livestock; changes in land use, such as cutting down forests or draining wetlands to create farmland; and activities before and after production, including food processing, transportation, retail, consumption in households, and food waste disposal.
Agricultural Solutions to Climate Change
Rather than functioning as a source of emissions, agriculture can become part of the solution to both adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. At both the regional and global levels, a growing body of scientific literature is identifying the potential of regenerative agricultural practices in sequestering carbon, helping to mitigate climate change while making agriculture more productive and resilient as the climate changes.
Research shows that agroforestry systems, the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits can sequester significant amounts of carbon in both soil and woody biomass, thereby "storing" some of the carbon produced by burning fossil fuels while also producing food and forage.
History of Agroforestry
While many farmers see these as experimental approaches, the practices have origins and continue in traditional ecological knowledge held by indigenous cultures who have significant relationship to this land and around the world. Contributors to this project acknowledge the Pocumtuc, Norwottuc, Nipmuc, Elnu, Abenaki, Pennacook, and Mahican peoples and nations for their generation and maintenance of this knowledge acknowledge that the land we farm is on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Nonotuck people. Contributors also name these practices with no claim to ownership or authority, but to highlight alternatives to conventional industrial agricultural methods. We make this acknowledgement in solidarity, understanding that it does not rectify the injustice upon which our land tenure is based but meant as a starting point toward greater public education of Native sovereignty and cultural rights - a critical step toward equitable relationship and reconciliation.
The Umass Carbon Farming Initiative
The UMass Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) is an endeavor of Stockbridge School of Agriculture students and faculty Lisa DePiano to research and practice regenerative food production at the Agricultural Learning Center (ALC).The Umass Carbon Farming initiative demonstrates some of these regenerative practices like Agroforestry, the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. These techniques have been developed and practiced around the world for thousands of years creating productive, resilient food systems. This demonstration sites highlight two of these agroforestry practices—silvopasture and alley cropping—that increase biodiversity, improve soil health, and capture carbon from the atmosphere. These plots illustrate how climate smart agriculture can work at the farm scale while supporting sustainable food production.
Through internal funding through the department Stockbridge School of Agriculture, the Sustainability Innovation and Engagement Fund (SEIF) and external funding from Sustainable Agriculture and Education (SARE) and partnership with Interlace Commons the UMass Carbon Farming Initiative has developed two living laboratories, showcasing Silvopasture and Alleycropping. These agricultural practices have been proven to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere and be an example of a resilient food growing practice in the face of climate change.