| #5 |
Having quickly read the study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-023-00023-3.epdf) the biggest sources of carbon for urban farms are infrastructure (raised beds, sheds, composting bins), water and synthetic fertiliser. So you can massively reduce your impact by collecting rainwater, switching to organic amendments and not building raised beds from virgin materials every 5 years. They also relied on urban farmers tracking their inputs and harvest data, which for us home gardeners is uhh...a bit unreliable.
Curiously they have marked poorly managed composting as the highest-impact input. When a compost pile goes anaerobic it starts to release methane, which has 28x higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. They didn't measure the gases coming off urban farm compost piles, so they have relied on information from other studies. They say ,"we estimate that careful compost management could cut GHGs by 39.4% on sites that use small-scale composting." So aerate your piles and keep them smelling sweet.
Here's an article where the one of the authors of the study discusses their findings more - https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-s...nal-study/
Curiously they have marked poorly managed composting as the highest-impact input. When a compost pile goes anaerobic it starts to release methane, which has 28x higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. They didn't measure the gases coming off urban farm compost piles, so they have relied on information from other studies. They say ,"we estimate that careful compost management could cut GHGs by 39.4% on sites that use small-scale composting." So aerate your piles and keep them smelling sweet.
Here's an article where the one of the authors of the study discusses their findings more - https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-s...nal-study/
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