Technical Brief: Estimates for Soil Carbon Drawdown Per Acre from Holistic Planned Grazing and Globally by All Means

Overview

​Three studies since 2016 of holistic planned grazing, aka adaptive multi-paddock “AMP” grazing, measured soil carbon sequestration rates: 0.9 tonnes of carbon per acre per year, or 0.93 tC/ac/yr (Rowntree 2020), 1.5 tC/ac/yr (Stanley 2018), and 1.2 tC/ac/yr (Teague 2016). These give an average of 1.21 tC/ac/yr, equivalent to 4.44 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per acre per year (4.44 tCO2/ac/yr).

Teague (2016) calculates the potential drawdown for North American pasturelands is 800 million tonnes of carbon per year (800 MtC/yr), or 0.8 gigatons of carbon per year (0.8 GtC/yr).

Thus, peer-reviewed literature estimates that in North America alone nearly a gigaton of carbon (or 3.67 gigatons CO2) can be sequestered (drawn down) per year (based on an estimate of 263 million hectares of North American pastureland). There are approximately 3.3 billion hectares of pastureland worldwide (UN FAO 2020).

Lal (2020) estimates that between 2020 and 2100, soil can sequester 178 PgC, or 178 GtC.

Note: 1 petagram (Pg) = 1 gigaton (Gt)

Thus, 178 gigatons C captured over 80 years yields an average drawdown rate of 2.25 billion tons of carbon per year (2.25 GtC/yr).

Rates Per Acre

Rate: 2.29 MgC/ha/yr (0.93 tC/ac/yr)
Location: Clay County, Georgia, USA
Notes: “multispecies pasture rotation (MSPR) … holistic planned grazing methodology”
Source: Rowntree (2020)

Rate: 3.59 MgC/ha/yr (1.5 tC/ac/yr)
Location: Missaukee County, Michigan, USA
Notes: “AMP grazed pastures”
Source: Stanley (2018) 

Rate: 3 tC/ha/yr (1.2 tC/ac/yr)
Location: Cooke, Parker and Jack counties, Texas, USA
Notes: “Adaptive Multi-paddock (AMP) grazing”
Source: Teague (2016)

Table Format​

References

Lal, R (2020) Managing soils for negative feedback to climate change and positive impact on food and nutritional security, Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 66:1, 1-9, DOI: 10.1080/00380768.2020.1718548.
 https://doi.org/10.1080/00380768.2020.1718548

Rowntree JE, Stanley PL, Maciel ICF, Thorbecke M, Rosenzweig ST, Hancock DW, Guzman A and Raven MR (2020) Ecosystem Impacts and Productive Capacity of a Multi-Species Pastured Livestock System. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 4:544984. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2020.544984
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.544984/full

Stanley, P. L., Rowntree, J. E., Beede, D. K., DeLonge, M. S., & Hamm, M. W. (2018). Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems. Agricultural Systems, 162, 249-258.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?via%3Dihub

Teague, W. R., Apfelbaum, S., Lal, R., Kreuter, U. P., Rowntree, J., Davies, C. A., R. Conser, M. Rasmussen, J. Hatfield, T. Wang, F. Wang, Byck, P. (2016). The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture's carbon footprint in North America. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 71(2), 156-164. doi:10.2489/jswc.71.2.156
http://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.full.pdf+html

​UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 07, May, 2020, Sustainable Agriculture, Land use in agriculture by the numbers.
https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1274219/