This small change to farming could reduce agriculture’s climate impact by 30%

Apr 30, 2021

Undisturbed soils release less CO₂ to the atmosphere. Image: REUTERS/Rick Scuteri

Sacha Mooney

Professor in Soil Physics and Director of the Hounsfield Facility, University of Nottingham

Hannah Victoria Cooper

Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Nottingham

Sofie Sjogersten

Associate Professor in Environmental Science, University of Nottingham

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Almost 90% of the world's animal species will lose some habitat to agriculture by 2050

a diagram showing how tiled and non-tilled soil compare

Conventionally tilled soils have more air pockets, which is where CO2 is generated. Image: Cooper et al. (2021), Author provided

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