American agriculture reduced greenhouse gas emissions by almost 2 percent from 2021 to 2022—the largest decrease of any economic sector. This was reported in the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently released Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2022.
In this study’s data set, the largest source of agricultural emissions came from soil management—just over 5 percent of U.S. emissions overall. However, crop cultivation emissions totaled 319 million metric tons in 2022, down 1.7 percent from 2021.
“This would include fertilizer applications and tillage practices, which saw a 7.2 million metric ton, or 2.4 percent, decrease from 2021 to 2022,” noted Ben Rowe, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation director of national affairs. “While soil management can lead to emissions of carbon dioxide, it also can serve to sequester it when conservation practices like no-till farming and cover crops are used.”
These conservation practices are particularly common in Virginia where w...