Bamboo Carbon Farming

Carbon farming is a name for a variety of agricultural methods aimed at sequestering atmospheric carbon into the soil and in crop roots, wood and leaves. The aim of carbon farming is to increase the rate at

which carbon is sequestered into soil and plant material with the goal of creating a net loss of carbon from the atmosphere. Increasing a soil's organic matter content can aid plant growth, increase total carbon content, improve soil water retention capacity and reduce fertilizer use. As of 2016, variants of carbon farming reached hundreds of millions of hectares globally, of the nearly 5 billion hectares (1.2×10¹⁰ acres) of world farmland. In addition to agricultural activities, forests management is also a tool that is used in Carbon farming. The practice of carbon farming is often done by individual land owners who are given incentive to use and to integrate methods that will sequester carbon through policies created by governments. Carbon farming methods will typically have a cost, meaning farmers and land-owners typically need a way in which they can profit from the use of carbon farming and different governments will have different programs.

Overview

Soil carbon

In part, soil carbon is thought to accumulate when decaying organic matter was physically mixed with soil. Small roots die and decay while the plant is alive, depositing carbon below the surface. More recently, the role of living plants has been emphasized where carbon is released as plants grow. 

Soils can contain up to five per cent carbon by weight, including decomposing plant and animal matter and biochar.

About half of soil carbon is found within deep soils. About 90% of this is stabilized by mineral-organic associations.

At least thirty-two Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) practices improve soil health and sequester carbon, along with important co-benefits: increased water retention, hydrological function, biodiversity and resilience. Approved practices may make farmers eligible for federal funds. Not all carbon farming techniques have been recommended. Carbon farming may consider related issues such as groundwater and surface water degradation.

By sector

Forestry

Forestry and Agriculture are both Land-based human activities that add up to contribute approximately a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. There is a large interest in reforestation, but in regards to carbon farming most of that reforestation opportunity will be in small patches with trees being planted by individual land owners in exchange for benefits provided by carbon farming programs. Forestry in Carbon farming can be both reforestation, which is restoring forests to areas that were deforested, and afforestation which would be planting forests in areas that were not historically forested. Not all forests will sequester the same amount of carbon. Carbon sequestration is dependent on several factors which can include forest age, forest type, amount of biodiversity, the management practices the forest is experiences and climate. Biodiversity is often thought to be a side benefit of carbon farming, but in forest ecosystems increased biodiversity can increase the rate of carbon sequestration and can be a tool in carbon farming and not just a side benefit.

Bamboo

A bamboo forest stores will store less total carbon than most types of mature forest. However, it can store a similar total amount of carbon as rubber plantation and tree orchard, and can surpass the total carbon

stored in agroforests, palm oil plantations, grasslands and shrublands. Bamboo plantation sequesters carbon at a faster rate than a mature forest or a tree plantation. Although it has been found that only new plantations or plantations with active management will be sequestering carbon at a faster rate than mature forests. Against other tree species that like bamboo will grow fast, bamboo is only superior in its ability to sequester carbon if selectively harvested. Bamboo forests are especially high in potential for carbon sequestration if the cultivated plant material are turned into durable products that keep the carbon in the plant material for a long period because bamboo is both fast growing and does well with regrowth following an annual cultivation. While, bamboo gives the ability to store carbon as biomass in cultivated material, more than half of the carbon sequestration done by bamboo will store carbon in the soil. Carbon that is sequestered into the soil by bamboo is stored by the rhizomes and roots which is biomass that will remain in the soil after plant material above the soil is harvested and is stored long-term. Bamboo can be planted in sub-optimal land that could not cultivate other crop plants and the benefit would include not only carbon sequestration but it would improve the quality of the land for future crops and reduce the amount of land subject to deforestation. The use of Carbon emission trading is also available to farmers who use bamboo to gain carbon credit in otherwise uncultivated land.

Bamboos include some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species of bamboo can grow 910 mm (36 in) within a 24-hour period, at a rate of

almost 40 mm (1+1⁄2 in) an hour (a growth around 1 mm every 90 seconds, or 1 inch {2.54 centimeters} every 40 minutes). Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. This rapid growth and tolerance for marginal land, make bamboo a good candidate for afforestation, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.

Therefore the farming of bamboo timber may have significant carbon sequestration potential.

Cultivation

Bamboo cultivation

Bamboo forestry (also known as bamboo farming, cultivation, agriculture or agroforestry) is a cultivation and raw material industry that provides the raw materials for the broader bamboo industry, worth over 72 billion dollars globally in 2019.

Historically, a dominant raw material in South and South East Asia, the global bamboo industry hassignificantly grown in recent decades in part because of the high sustainability of bamboo as compared to other biomass cultivation strategies, such as traditional timber forestry. For example, as of 2016, the U.S. Fiber corporation Resource Fiber is contracting farmers in the United States for Bamboo cultivation. Or in 2009, United Nations Industrial Development Organization published guidelines for cultivation of bamboo in semi-arid climates in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Because bamboo can grow on otherwise marginal land, bamboo can be profitably cultivated in many degraded lands. Moreover, because of the rapid growth bamboo is an effective Climate change mitigation and carbon sequestration crop, absorbing between 100 and 400 tonnes of carbon per hectare. In 1997, an international intergovernmental organization was established to promote the development of bamboo cultivation, the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation.

Bamboo is harvested from both cultivated and wild stands, and some of the larger bamboos, particularly species in the genus Phyllostachys, are known as "timber bamboos". Bamboo is typically harvested as a source material for construction, food, crafts and other manufactured goods.

Uses

Fuel

Bamboo charcoal comes from pieces of bamboo plants, harvested after at least five years, and burned in

ovens at temperatures ranging from 800 to 1200 °C. It benefits environmental protection by reducing pollutant residue. It is an environmentally functional material featuring excellent absorption properties.

Bamboo charcoal has a long Chinese history, with documents dating as early as 1486 during the Ming dynasty in Chuzhou Fu Zhi. There is also mention of it during the Qing dynasty, during the reigns of emperors Kangxi, Qianlong, and Guangxu.

Fabric

Bamboo textile is any cloth, yarn or clothing made from bamboo fibres. While historically used only for structural elements, such as bustles and the ribs of corsets, in recent years different technologies have been developed that allow bamboo fibre to be used for a wide range of textile and fashion applications.

Examples include clothing such as shirt tops, pants, socks for adults and children as well as bedding such as sheets and pillow covers. Bamboo yarn can also be blended with other textile fibres such as hemp or spandex. Bamboo is an alternative to plastic that is renewable and can be replenished at a fast rate.

Modern clothing labeled as being made from bamboo is usually viscose rayon, a fiber made by dissolving the cellulose in the bamboo, and then extruding it to form fibres. This process removes the natural characteristics of bamboo fibre, rendering it identical to rayon from other cellulose sources.

Other uses

Bamboo has traditionally been used to make a wide range of everyday utensils and cutting boards, particularly in Japan, where archaeological excavations have uncovered bamboo baskets dating to the Late Jōmon period (2000–1000 BC).

Bamboo has a long history of use in Asian furniture. Chinese bamboo furniture is a distinct style based on a millennia-long tradition, and bamboo is also used for floors due to its high hardness.

Several manufacturers offer bamboo bicycles, surfboards, snowboards, and skateboards.

Due to its flexibility, bamboo is also used to make fishing rods. The split cane rod is especially prized for fly fishing. Bamboo has been traditionally used in Malaysia as a firecracker called a meriam buluh or bamboo
cannon. Four-foot-long sections of bamboo are cut, and a mixture of water and calcium carbide are introduced. The resulting acetylene gas is ignited with a stick, producing a loud bang. Bamboo can be used in water desalination. A bamboo filter is used to remove the salt from seawater.

Challenges

Carbon farming is not without its challenges or disadvantages. When ecosystem restoration is used as a form of carbon farming, there can be a lack of knowledge that is disadvantageous in project planning. Ecosystem services are often a side benefit of restoring ecosystems along with carbon farming, but often ecosystem services are ignored in project planning because, unlike carbon sequestration, is not a global commodity that can be traded. If and how carbon farming's additional sequestration methods can affect ecosystem services should be researched to determine how different methods and strategies will impact the value an ecosystem service in particular areas. One concern to note is that if policy and incentives are only aimed towards carbon sequestration then carbon farming could actually be harmful to ecosystems. Carbon farming could inadvertently cause an increase of land clearing and monocultures when species diversity is not a goal of the landscapes project, so there should be attempts to balance the goals of carbon farming and biodiversity should be attempted.