Erik Kobayashi-Solomon writes in Forbes about a Kansas-based sustainable agriculture startup.
- PrairieFood is a Kansas-based farming startup that creates biomass waste that can draw more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere while improving soil health.
- The company has found that applying 40 gallons of its solution on one acre of land can increase the Soil Organic Matter (SOM) by one percentage point over a single season, which is a 10 fold increase in SOM that is seen when using traditional fertilizers.
- PrairieFood estimates that if the 12.5 billion acres of land that is used for agriculture worldwide experienced a 1% increase in SOM, nearly 180 gigatons of carbon would be pulled from the atmosphere.
“When PrairieFood ‘slurry’ is applied to agricultural fields, the organisms within the soil think they have stumbled upon an all-you-can-eat buffet. They consume the carbon and provide ‘services’ to the crops (e.g., ‘fixing’ nitrogen – taking nitrogen out of the air and providing it to the plants). As the organisms give the plants more of what they need, the plants flourish. In return, the plants photosynthesize more actively – pulling in more carbon dioxide and changing it to sugars, some of which they give back to the soil organisms through their root systems.”
Read the full article here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
