How to Lower Agriculture and Land-Use Emissions

Climate change is mainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels, but that’s not the only way we’re warming the planet.

Human activity can affect how many greenhouse gases are emitted by Earth’s soil, plants, and animals. From cutting down trees to growing crops and raising livestock, human land use and agriculture generates 22 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This lesson explains why land use harms the climate so significantly and outlines steps that can help reverse the damage.

The next page contains a video that discusses the relationship between agriculture, land use, and climate change. Play the video. As it plays, think through the following questions:

• What are carbon sinks, and how does human activity impact them?
• What basic components of agriculture lead to greenhouse gas emissions?

How to Reduce Agriculture and Land Use Emissions

There are many ways to reduce agricultural emissions. Let’s take a look at a few examples below!

• Tech innovations: New fertilizers formulated to release nitrogen more slowly can lower nitrous oxide emissions, while improving crop yields. Also, precision agriculture—an umbrella term for an array of data-driven analyses, machinery, and new farming techniques—can fine-tune fertilizer applications, making them more efficient and reducing unnecessary emissions. And analysts can use machine-learning models to determine best practices for reducing emissions from rice paddies.
• Lower livestock emissions: Breeding strategies, feeding animals higher-quality food, and providing modern veterinary care can lead to livestock gaining weight more quickly. That means the livestock can produce the same number of calories while reducing the amount of food eaten and greenhouse gases emitted. Those animals still produce methane as part of their digestion. But feed supplements will likely eventually be able to reduce the amount of methane cattle produce. Under lab conditions, supplements made from a type of seaweed were able to reduce methane production during digestion by up to 60 percent. There are also ways to capture the methane from livestock manure and use it, instead of fossil fuels, to generate electricity and heat homes.
• Diet changes: Reducing demand for beef and other ruminant meats by switching to healthier plant-based foods can lower livestock emissions. That does not mean, however, that everyone should become a vegetarian or vegan. In a recent report, climate experts recommended that wealthy countries limit their intake of beef, lamb, and goat meat to the equivalent of roughly two burgers per person, per week, in order to hit global climate targets.
• Carbon sequestration: Farmers can use regenerative agriculture practices and other soil management techniques to keep an estimated billion tons of CO₂ in the ground each year. That can involve planting “cover crops” that can be plowed into the ground (storing their nutrients and carbon) before the main crop is planted. Also, those practices help limit the extent of tilling farmers need to do, so less of the organic matter is exposed to air and more of its carbon stays in the soil.
• Nature-based solutions: Ranchers and farmers can give more consideration to how their activity damages their unique local environments. Finding ways to grow crops and raise livestock without harming the ecosystems around them can help prevent additional emissions.

Although plenty of opportunities exist to reduce agricultural emissions, changing human land use is also important to addressing climate change.

What Are Humans Doing to Mitigate Agriculture and Land Use Emissions?

For many people around the world, farming and working the land is their livelihood. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as of 2023, agriculture employed some 873 million people in 2021, or 27 percent of the global workforce. Many do not necessarily have the financial resources to adopt new low-emissions practices. And even if they do have the means, farmers could be wary of unfamiliar techniques and could worry that they would increase costs and lower their earnings.

Hunger is another concern. According to some reports, almost one-in-ten people around the world don’t have enough food to eat. What’s more, the need for nourishment is growing. The global population is expected to grow by nearly two billion in the next thirty years. While many governments are concerned about lowering emissions, they could simultaneously be wary of actions that could reduce the available food—particularly as experts fear that droughts and other effects from climate change will worsen food insecurity.

What is being done?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing over $2 billion in Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. The program finances agricultural pilot projects that feature innovative approaches to tracking and reducing emissions in a way that would lead to viable enterprises. At the same time, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture promotes sustainable agricultural practices and provides funding for research and training programs.

It’s not just the United States taking action. The European Union similarly funds sustainable agriculture research and promotion. International organizations also work to advance emissions-lowering practices in the developing world.

For example, the World Bank–funded Rural Alliances Project (PAR) supports “climate smart agriculture” interventions in Bolivia. They leverage automated irrigation, humidity sensors, and drone technology to enhance data collection that facilitates sustainable farming. While lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the practices also increase the size and quantity of food grown—offering a potential boon to Bolivians, one-third of whom are employed in the agricultural sector.

The United Nations also helps developing countries on that front. Its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) promotes sustainable approaches for using environmental resources efficiently. FAO offers tools and guidance for policymakers and coordinates international financing for projects and programs related to sustainable agriculture and forestry management.

Farming is fundamental to human survival, but current practices are contributing to climate change, which threatens millions of lives and livelihoods. Ramping up work to reduce emissions from agriculture and land-use practices around the world is an urgent task for policymakers and leaders in this sector.